<text class="_textbox_jbug0_13" direction="ltr" height="14.2299957275391" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="247.208908081055" x="50.3600006103516" y="-230.5" data-test="textbox">Delfin Finley&rsquo;s paintings </text><text class="_textbox_jbug0_13" direction="ltr" height="14.2299957275391" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="247.283802032471" x="50.2400016784668" y="-218.5" data-test="textbox">reflect his identity as a person of color, challenge the dominant </text><text class="_textbox_jbug0_13" direction="ltr" height="14.2299957275391" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="247.411922454834" x="50.1199989318848" y="-206.5" data-test="textbox">lens of the art world, and work to encourage the investigation </text><text class="_textbox_jbug0_13" direction="ltr" height="14.2299957275391" lengthadjust="spacingAndGlyphs" textlength="68.1969985961914" x="50.3499984741211" y="-194.5" data-test="textbox">of internal biases.</text>

Photography by Ricardo Gomes
Styled by Rita Melssen and Jordan Beckett

Born to two <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/fashion-secretive-designers-margiela-prada">fashion designers</a>, painter Delfin Finley was raised in a household that fiercely encouraged <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/copenhagen-fashion-week-designers-2019">creativity.</a> &ldquo;I grew up in the design studio and was always surrounded by materials and mark-making tools,&rdquo; he says. Finley&rsquo;s paintings reflect his <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/audemars-piguet/arin-rungjang-interview-lgbtq-audemars-piguet-2019">identity</a> as a person of color, challenge the dominant lens of the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/franklin-sirmans-curator-perez-art-museum-miami">art world</a>, and work to encourage the investigation of internal biases.

L'OFFICIEL: When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
DELFIN FINLEY: Throughout middle school and high school, I was really involved in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/kaws-what-party-brooklyn-museum">graffiti</a>, so I was still drawing all the time, but when I was getting ready to graduate I didn&rsquo;t really know what to do. My older brother Kohshin was about to graduate from art school, and I saw the work he was making and how much his work had improved, so I was like, I like drawing, that looks cool, maybe I should try painting out, because I had never really painted before. I went to Santa Monica College and took a painting class and I was like, oh, we might have something here! It felt really good, and then I took another painting class, and then I was like, okay, I think this might be the thing. Ever since then, I just never stopped. 
L'O: Tell us a bit about your time as a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/coach-signature-logo-as-told-by-nyc-graffiti-artists">graffiti</a> artist.&nbsp;
DF: <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/francesco-ragazzi-palm-angels-8-moncler-2019">Vandalism</a>&mdash;like letters, style, three-dimensionality, catching tags wherever you can, trying to be seen as much as possible. That was the main goal, but also in a way that people are gonna enjoy seeing it. Graffiti has a lot of negative connotations, but I feel like people are just looking at the wrong stuff. There&rsquo;s a lot of beautiful aspects to it, and I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d be the artist I am today without it. Artists I met doing graffiti would take me to their galleries. It became like a weekly thing for me and my brother: we&rsquo;d go to art galleries every week and see new work, and street art was my introduction to all of that.

"I want everyone to be able to enjoy my work and to feel seen."

L'O: Has your family always been supportive?
DF: I&rsquo;m so appreciative of my parents; from the beginning they&rsquo;ve been so supportive of anything my brothers and I have wanted to do in life, and they really pushed me to go the creative route. It&rsquo;s something I didn&rsquo;t appreciate until I got to art school, because when I was there, I met so many other kids that were also pursuing art, but they told me their parents thought it was stupid. They wanted them to be a doctor, lawyer, something that&rsquo;s more secure financially. That made me so appreciative of my parents because they&rsquo;ve never told me not to do what I wanted to do. They&rsquo;ve supported it as much as they possibly could and have been my biggest fans the whole way.&nbsp; 
L'O: Your paintings are very lifelike.&nbsp;
DF: When I was younger, all the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/artist-toba-khedoori-painting-fridericianum-germany">paintings</a> I connected to the most were the more realistic things, like the Old Masters: the Caravaggios, the Rembrandts, the Vermeers. I was just so amazed at how they were able to manipulate the paint and make it look so lifelike; they made it look like flesh. I didn&rsquo;t see anybody that looked like me or my family or my friends portrayed in that style, and I wanted that. I wanted to give kids another way to connect to the work, to see themselves. I want them to go to the gallery and feel represented, I don&rsquo;t want it to feel like somewhere that&rsquo;s too stuck-up or snobby for them, because I have felt that, where you feel like you&rsquo;re not welcome. I want everyone to be able to enjoy my work and to feel seen.&nbsp;

HAIR Andy Lecompte MAKEUP Wendi Miyake TAILOR Shirlee Idzakovich PHOTO ASSISTANT Brandon Minton STYLIST ASSISTANT Elliott Soriano HAIR AND MAKEUP ASSISTANTS Axel Rojas, Jordann Aguon, and Ty Sanderson

Delfin Finley on Using Art for Identity Exploration

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