About

I’M EVAN. I AM A CONDUIT, A CREATIVE SPARK, AN ENGAGED HUMAN BEING.

I make, build, organize, curate, connect.

With over 15 years of experience, I've partnered with industry giants like LinkedIn, Pepsi, Adidas, Gensler and Discover to transform spaces and communities through art. As the founder of IPaintMyMind, I excel in enterprise sales, project management, arts programming, partnerships, and strategic marketing, driving revenue and brand growth through custom art projects and servicing happy corporate clients.

I'm a charismatic, joyful, leader & I love a great strategy, art projects, & great partnerships. My experience working with major brands, elite artists, and diverse communities is indicative of my unique mix of senior executive and community leader.

My passion lies in uniting art and community for the service of sticky experiential moments that elevate impactful brands, rallying people around the transformative power of creativity. As Executive Director (CEO), I oversee program delivery, client services, artist relations, logistics and innovation, installations & content creation, ensuring seamless execution and client/partner satisfaction.

I lead a dynamic team in crafting mission-aligned revenue-generating strategies and brand activations that resonate with audiences. My Argentinian-American heritage enriches my inclusive approach, engaging diverse communities as a "Whitino" — White Latino.

I am an artist, and make textural photographic street art that embraces digital tools and is all about awareness and being the beauty hidden in everyday moments.

Explore my projects here on EvanLaRuffa.com and please reach out if I can help.

I am a husband, father, curator, art consultant, Chicago based artist, nonprofit executive, & a whole lot more.

Artist Statement

For all my life, really, I have made art. Illustrations as a kid, which gave way to a lot of writing, then the visual arts after college with illustration and line work, and then most recently, photography. I am attracted to ideas more than process, and love how new tools flatten the earth, and give more and more of us a chance to be creative.

My photography has run the gamut - from the dark room in high school where I seemed to love multiple exposures more than most, then live concerts, an emphasis on black and white architecture, and dabbling with SLR’s, until coming to my most recent body of work, which is a series entitled ‘Post All Bills.’ The series was born in New York City, where you can’t help but pass by various Post No Bills walls, of which everyone, quite predictably, posts bills. Ads for concerts, products, anything, really. As they are worn, tattered, torn at, and obliterated by humans, moisture, sun, and wind, they yield layers, segments, and compositions that please me to no end.

Finding them is the first part. Being lucky enough to coincide with them, temporally. After that it is up to me to turn them into more, to discover what else they have to offer, manipulating them in post-production, creating new moments that never existed.

This series has been shot entirely on iPhones. I am not a purist, a snob, or one of these people that thinks because they spent more money on their equipment that they are inherently better at what they do, or that photography isn’t actually more about awareness and light than tech snobbery.

My work is accessible, born from the street, made in cities, and the product of one question: what does it look like from over there? And how can I bring this to life in a new way, a way that makes someone feel good, lose time, and enjoy.