Artist, Ivan Quiñones II is an ideas man. Last year, he had an idea to present art as a fashion runway show. In March 2024 he executed the project, named it SEIZE, and designed it to mimic a high-stakes art heist. The show opened with alarms, flashing lights, and a service announcement warning of a security breach. The models rushed out, clad in black with masks and flashlights. They remained in character for the entire production, flaunting their canvas spoils to a sold out audience.
SEIZE was staged at 40 Howard Street – an 180,000 SF industrial building serving artisans and small businesses in the heart of Pontiac, MI. At the top of 2025, the production returned for an encore performance, even better than the year before. What an exciting way to kick off the new year and engage with art!
SEIZE features around twenty artists of all types of work – from portraiture and figurative paintings, to abstract, surrealism, graffiti art, digital, mixed media and sculpture. The event’s music has been curated by DJ Heart & Soul with local sponsors and vendors including Big Star Events, Covered In Cake, and Typsy Lotus. After the runway show, a pop-up exhibition magically appears in an adjacent space, giving guests an opportunity to get up close to the work, meet the artists, and even pick up pieces to add to their collections.
Quiñones, whose career shot into high gear when he created and sold a mixed media painting of Kyrie Irving in 2023, delved into fashion in the early 2000s, collaborating then with seamstresses to evolve his ideas from paper to the runway. When asked how he came up with SEIZE, “I’m always trying to think of something different,” he said. “I was at the studio one night and was just like, wouldn’t it be dope to have art on runways, like fashion? That’s basically where the idea came from – from me doing fashion shows back in the day and art shows as of recent, and merging the two together to present something different.”
Located in the Howard Street building, El Piqasso Studio is where Ivan brainstorms, creates, and offers workshops and programs for artists, youth and community. A Pontiac native, he admits he had to leave city for a few years and return to recognize the its intrinsic cultural value. While many saw Pontiac as a place they needed leave in order to thrive creatively, Ivan now leans into its endless possibilities and homegrown talent. “Growing up, we had the arts and music festivals and concerts around the city – those are some of the best memories I had growing up here in Pontiac. So now, coming back and seeing, you know, almost like this clean slate, there’s room not only to recreate its arts scene, but also to build upon it with some pretty unique, different stuff.”
In addition to his own work as an exhibiting artist, Quiñones is a member of the Pontiac Arts Commission, and the recent recipient of a generous ARPA Fund Grant which supports his opening of the El Piqasso Art Café & Gallery in Downtown Pontiac this Spring. Look for SEIZE 3 later this season: The art heist is on its way to Detroit with an ever-expanding roster.
