LeCrue Eyebrows visited Van Der Plas Gallery on New York’s Lower East side one afternoon in early March, not long after wrapping up his first show in the city, “Primitive Form.” By then, only four of his pieces lingered in the basement; the rest sold out.
The artist, ever elusive, wore a fairly nondescript outfit on his visit, a graphic-T, Carhartt sweatshirt and a baseball cap. He may not be recognizable to many onlookers, but his work is. An Eyebrows piece is simple and distinct: 2D, white, animal-like creatures with single-line heads and stretched out limbs, bodies, necks, or all three, are usually positioned against flat black backdrops. An array of whimsical objects feature regularly in his paintings, including three stars and a quarter moon, apples, child-like houses (triangle roof, square base), bowls and cups.
There’s something original about Eyebrows’s work—not just original as in distinct, but also original as in of or relating to the beginning.
In one of the paintings still available at Van Der Plas at the show’s end, called ‘Carry the Bowl,’ a four-legged creature cranes its long neck toward the ground, a bowl and spoon balanced on its head. To the right of the figure, three stars lead to a slice of white moon. Another, called ‘Her Breath in Time’ features an animal with a human-esque head, five arms and three legs (though that distinction in limbs is really in the eye of the beholder) and long flowing hair. In one arm, a hairbrush; in the other, an arrow. Another arm cradles a pear and a selection of apples. A snake slithers under foot.
There’s something original about Eyebrows’s work—not just original as in distinct, but also original as in of or relating to the beginning.
The work features no humans, no distinct settings, cultures or beliefs. It comes with no specific set of politics. Where some see Eve, others may find Venus or Juno. In rare cases where words appear, they’re quaint, i.e. “Hug Make You Strong.” In an age increasingly interested in its own complexity, Eyebrows’s pieces read like parables — messages that speak to a universal core: goodness, humility, strength, sin, perseverance.
In an age increasingly interested in its own complexity, Eyebrows’s pieces read like parables — messages that speak to a universal core: goodness, humility, strength, sin, perseverance.
“There’s seven different personalities in there,” Eyebrows said, referring to ‘Her Breath in Time.’ “At the same time, it’s one in the reflection of seven or seven being projected by one. You can tell seven different stories in one painting.”
In the spirit of parable, Eyebrows said he is in some ways communicating with his three young children through the paintings. His kids have also inspired his art name and, for some time, prompted him to give up oil paints — he was worried about the toxicity — and turn to digital drawing. That interval helped Eyebrows discover his style, which he calls “a little cartoony.”
“I’ve opened up the communication process through art… I’m also putting [my kids] in there. The three stars is them, always,” he said. “I want them to know you have everything that you need already installed, downloaded in your body to overcome all the tribulations that are going to happen throughout life.”
Compared to some of his earlier work, the Eyebrows pieces that now feature in gallery shows are cleaner, bolder and more direct. He seems to be playing more often with empty space and using fewer words and colors than he did as a street artist.
That kind of paring down is often part of an artist’s natural evolution—and for Eyebrows, it has been organic.
Though he never studied art in school, Eyebrows got an informal education while watching the door Friday nights at the Greenpoint Gallery, where there were “all different kinds of artists walking through the doors,” he said. The owner and curator, Shawn James, shared insight about toning and color theory. That’s why Eyebrows’s paintings on canvas now begin with an earth-tone wash, which sometimes pokes through the black and white to create rare flashes of color.
Learning that black and white are not technically part of the color spectrum but are the results of light being either entirely reflected or entirely absorbed had a particular impact on the artist. It revealed something to him about the possibility of his work to speak multitudes.
“What’s happening to me when I’m painting is I’m projecting [a story] into the art, and what the art is doing to me is reflecting it back to me,” he said. “I want that to happen to people. I want that painting to draw you in and then tell you something that you don’t know.”
“What’s happening to me when I’m painting is I’m projecting [a story] into the art, and what the art is doing to me is reflecting it back to me,” he said. “I want that to happen to people. I want that painting to draw you in and then tell you something that you don’t know.”
The universality in Eyebrows’s work is aided by the absence of the artist, something that’s nearly impossible to achieve today. Despite his burgeoning success, no one at Eyebrows’s day job knows he’s a painter. The reverse is also true; he keeps his full-time job under wraps in the art world.
“To me, that’s a different person,” Eyebrows said.
Though he’s had a successful gallery show and several commissioned murals in high-traffic areas—one of which appeared in the newest season of the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That—designed the cover of a Biohazard album; sells merch and has inspired a few tattoos, at the end of each day, Eyebrows can still close the door on his garage-turned-studio and return to being a guy from Queens.
“I must be on the right path. I must be doing something right,” Eyebrows said of the opportunities that have come his way. “I’m aligning with something inside. As long as I can stay straight, and don’t get distracted or other bullshit, then I can continue this message.”
Still, one wonders, as does Eyebrows, how long he can remain separate from what he creates in the public eye. For now, he’s letting his work tell its own stories.
“If I balanced [two lives] this far, it’s not killing me,” he said. “If it’s feeding each other, then let it feed.”
