One Battle After Another - The New York Underground Art League Celebrates Five Years and over 50 Art Battles
Written by Bree Chapin & T.K. Mills
Published on December 17th, 2025
The New York Underground Art League A.K.A. the Art Battles at Sour Mouse are preparing for our #53 Match, capping off our 5th season. For five years, we’ve brought the New York City art community together to watch artists duke it out on the Lower East Side. We’ve alternated between singles & doubles, rookies & pros, setting up match after match of fast-paced art action.
Whether you’re a newcomer to the event or have been with us since the beginning, there are probably things about the NYUAL Art Battles you don’t know. For example, did you know the original pitch for the events at Sour Mouse were for a bi-weekly rap battle? Or that one of our combatants was arrested en route to compete—but managed to make back in time for the final reveal?
It’s been an exciting, legendary ride so far for artists and supporters alike. Co-founders Bree Chapin and T.K. Mills take a look back at how the whole thing got started and grew into the monthly must-go event on the Lower East Side it is today.
T.K.: “Bree, since you were the one who kind of started it all, how did you first connect with Evan Salton and Sour Mouse?”
Bree: “I first met Evan through Fat Free Gallery, which was the Street Art gallery he had founded on Allen Street. I’d had some work at his gallery and we connected a few times over art but hadn’t been in frequent contact. A year or two later he reached out and said he was starting a project at this new space on Delancey and Essex called Sour Mouse.”
Located right on the corner of the Delancey-Essex stop, Sour Mouse is a large, airy underground space with a bar, stage, and several billiard and ping-pong tables. Artist and gallerist Evan Salton started collaborating with Sour Mouse owner Aaron Ho to infuse the space with a dynamic art, especially of the graffiti-inspired and street art variety. To set the tone, he commissioned local legend Indie184 to adorn the main walls with a gorgeous, pop art mural.
Sour Mouse opened its doors in October of 2020 while the city was contending with the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously this was an extremely difficult time for any restaurant or bar to survive—let alone open for the first time.
Bree: “This was a few months into lockdown and I think at that point, people were optimistic that all the great science brains would figure it out any day now. I don’t think average people could imagine at that point just how big of an interruption COVID would be. No one thought it was going to last for years.”
“We were throwing around a couple of ideas and I think one of the first ideas that I thought would gel with the space was, ‘well why not have a weekly rap battle?’ No one else was into that idea, haha, so then I was like, ‘okay, how about a weekly art battle?’ We sort of tossed that idea back and forth. I drew up a plan to get started and he liked it, Aaron was on board.”
T.K.: “I remember for me I think it was January 2020 that Rachel Margolin, who at the time was the press agent for Sour Mouse reached out to me and was like, ‘hey this bar that’s opening up is putting on some Art Battles and we want you to be the M.C. and the judge.’ I remember thinking to myself that the M.C. and the judge really shouldn’t be the same person BUT I’m interested to get involved. That was around the time that I kind of came in.”
The Art Battles were still in the conceputal phase when T.K. joined and brought many of the innovations that helped give it more of the structure it has to this day.
T.K.: “I remember sort of tinkering with the shape of it. I put together a judge rubric and submitted a draft of it to you. And then I remember initially you had in mind two artists… I thought maybe we should have three so it’s not like you win, you lose, but more like there’s a winner.”
The very first battle of the New York Underground Art League was held in February of 2021. At that point in the pandemic it was still considered dangerous to gather large groups of people. So even with Sour Mouse’s huge capacity and high-end ventilation system, the team decided that we would have to find ways of making it happen without the presence of an audience.
T.K.: “I remember that first one being super over-produced. Like we were all really frantic about it, there were definitely too many cooks in the kitchen. And then there was also a blizzard happening the same day.
Bree: “RIGHT! Right, I completely forgot about the fucking blizzard!”
T.K.: “Because Will Power (@theartofwillpower) was going to be one of the judges but he couldn’t make it because of the weather. So the only judges we had were Lois from StreetArtNYC (@streetartnyc) and John from Bklyneville (@bklyneville)
Bree: “I’d forgotten about that blizzard! I think I was so up in my head at that point, and we were trying to do, like, recording? Since we couldn’t have people in the space.”
T.K.: “We were trying to live-stream it. I was trying to live-stream it from my phone and do interviews with the artists and judges. I remember Vanessa was on the other end saying, ‘the service is shit and no one can hear anything, but it looks cool!’ A few people came to support, but I don’t remember a lot of people showing up.”
After the first Art Battle, we realized had to make tweaks to the formula—even if the weather and pandemic were out of our control. It was obvious that the event would benefit from an energetic M.C., so T.K. invited Omar Victorious AKA Prolific Wone (@prolificwone) ] to host the second battle.
Omar brought an electric energy to the proceedings and really kept the crowd engaged—both the small gathering of people we were able to safely invite to the space and the spectators watching on social media.
Bree: “I credit Omar and his vibe with a lot of the whole Art Battles thing growing. He has this ability to keep people engaged. Because watching people paint live is fun for artists, but for other people maybe in the community you kind of have to bring them in.”
T.K.: “Especially I feel like in the second half when the pieces are starting to come together people are more intrigued. But in the first half, when the artists are kind of sketching and fill and background, it’s a little harder to hold people’s attention. Omar made it work.”
For the third event, we didn’t yet have the budget to bring him back, however, so it was Bree’s turn at the stage. This famously did not go as well.
T.K.: “So for the third one, since we didn’t have a budget you M.C.-ed and like… ok you understand why we need to hire someone for this. And that was when Sour Mouse kind of caved a bit like, this has potential but we need a bit of money. So we got a little bit of a budget and after that was sort of when we started to actually have the format as it started to become.”
Bree: “That was it, I think I kind of repressed that memory haha. Because I’m a behind-the-scenes person, not an M.C. and I don’t really like public speaking. Sure I’m fine playing off of somebody but… I think at first you and I agreed that we would like, trade off M.C. duties, but it took my epic train wreck failure for Aaron and Evan to be like, ‘yeah no, there’s a reason this is much much better with a professional.”
T.K.: “I mean Omar honestly he’s great. Omar brought something in the beginning and he did it like 40 times so he knew the thing by hand.”
In those first few battles, we were also tweaking the format of the event itself. We refined the judging rubric and the mystery prompts, introduced the concept of a hype score from the audience, and the system of brackets with two semi-finals and one grand finale match at the end of the year.
T.K.: “I think it was the second or third battle where we introduced the concept of the “hype score” to get feedback from the audience.”
“I remember pushing for the rubric because I had been a judge in another event prior. There had been no clear rubric or criteria to judge the art just ‘go tell people they lost.’ I did not like that, it was super uncomfortable.”
“So that was a big reason I felt we needed some sense of standards so that it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable for everyone involved and they’d want to come back.”
Bree: “That was an important innovation. Especially saying “this one is better than that one.” How do you judge which one is “better?” Especially when all of the artists are legit amazing, doing weird or interesting shit.”
T.K.: “I think it was you who started the themes. I remember in the beginning they were very like, Dr. Seuss, catchy little jokes.”
Bree: “I love a pun!”
T.K.: “And the first year, they were all mouse-related because we were in Sour Mouse… but then after that we started to expand beyond just mice.”
Bree: “There’s a limit to rodent humor.”
The first two seasons of Art Battles (with their rodent-themed prompts) led up to the Grand Finale, which kicked off with the prompt: If you come for the crown, you better not miss. The two finalists were Calicho and Gunnar.
Bree: “I was especially proud of that last one! That last one was the big epic drama at the end. Calicho showed up in his head-to-to signature all-white outfit and sunny demeanor and then Gunnar came in dressed in all black with a huge hat… a bit like a comic book villain.”
TK: “Gunnar was a great villain, especially because in the first half he was just shit-posting the whole time. I remember there was someone who came, was some kind of a high-tier influencer, and came up to me and was like ‘what is this?’”
“At half time I had to be like, “Gunnar, ok you got the joke in but now actually try.” And he did a great piece—he still lost. The judges kind of resented that he didn’t take it seriously in the beginning, but he was such a perfect heel. He did such an epic job of playing the villain.”
Bree: “I like to imagine in the future they’ll do a dramatic reenactment for a movie of that night… because it was so perfect how it went down. It was like a three-act nail-biter: Who’s gonna win? Of course, it’s gotta be the outwardly friendly, visually-coded good guy! They were both so great.”
As the restrictions began to lift in that first year, the NYUAL picked up steam and began fomenting a real community. Each event had its firsts and plenty of legend-defining moments.
T.K.: “Another thing that came out of that first year, because I remember when Vanessa did it, she did A Mouse in the Sun and that was what inspired Vanessa to make the sun sort of her character.”
Bree: “Wow, I had no idea! Because that’s definitely her signature now.”
T.K.: “Yeah that first year was so iconic in a number of ways. It had a lot of influence on the art scene at the time. The second year we started the teams battles, then in the third year we went back to singles. The fourth year was when we started with the All Stars idea, where artists who had battled in the past came back. This year, we’re back to teams again.
Bree: “I remember the teams battles were significant, too, because we were pairing people who hadn’t ever collaborated before and some of them went on to do collaborations.
T.K.: “I remember the first battle in the Spring season, we had Phillip Haines and Daniel, but then Daniel got arrested literally right before the match right outside Sour Mouse. It was a real oh shit moment. Sameer Organic Decline (@organicdecline) walked in and I was like, ‘hey you wanna paint tonight?’ He agreed and was like, ‘you’re up!’”
Bree: “I remember he got picked up on the sidewalk painting such dangerous, controversial things as Dream Until It’s Your Reality… on the sidewalk! I was like, you gotta be kidding. BUT then he actually made it to the bar after the match! I think the cops only held him for a little while. That was a nice happy storybook ending to that story. And I think he and Phil even continued working together and collaborating after that.”
Since its beginning in 2021, the New York Underground Art League and its surrounding community has continued to grow into the well-known happening it has become. As the home of the Art Battles, Sour Mouse now has a reputation as a respected institution within the NYC community.
Bree: “Starting in a dedicated space is huge. And on our end—not for nothing—we brought a huge part of that crowd in. Sour Mouse was going to get the bar and billiards crowd in anyway, but we definitely helped make it the spot for the street art scene.”
T.K.: “Everyone I talk to knows about Sour Mouse because of what we’ve been doing. Even now I meet new people and they’re like, “oh yeah, Sour Mouse. It’s that spot where they do cool art stuff”
Bree: “And that happened in a big part because of the Art Battles. The gallery shows, too, are very cool, but it’s a challenge to activate that kind of space with a static gallery. You need something live. The community is so energized in that space and so regular because of the League.
T.K.: “If you think back to the beginning, there was a point where we were like, the only event happening. Everyone else was really reluctant to put things on because of what was happening.”
Bree: “Yeah, bars and venues were closing. No one knew how long it was going to go on for… those were super dark times. People were desperate for something positive and hopeful.”
Bree Chapin is a studio artist and muralist. She is also co-founder and co-producer of the New York Underground Art League and an occasional writer. Having passed several thrilling decades in New York City, she has found a second home in sunny Lisboa.
T.K. Mills is an art journalist based in New York City. After receiving a Master’s Degree in Global Affairs, he discovered a love for graffiti while backpacking through Cuba. T.K. has written for several art publications including SOLD, Global Street Art, and Arte Fuse. Additionally, he manages the street art blog, Well Pleased We Dream. Beyond art, T.K. loves reading and traveling.
Insta: @t.k.m85
Website: www.tkmills.com