Inside Cole Newman’s Richardson studio, it seems like every square inch is covered with layers and layers of thick, dried paint.
Walk into the back “splash zone” and you’ll find the floor is just dribs and drabs of white, yellow, green, blue, red, purple and pink paint. Even Newman’s iPhone is covered with a thick layer of paint.
The studio is bursting with energy – it’s warm and energetic like Newman. He’s got what Gen-Z likes to call “golden retriever energy.”
“I'm sure you can tell I can just talk forever,” he says with a chuckle.
It’s that chattiness that his 2.3 million TikTok followers enjoy as they watch his viral pendulum painting videos on his channel @colescolor.
Newman calls himself an “action painter.” He suspends a large canvas from hooks installed in the walls of his studio and then hangs a can of paint from the ceiling.
He grabs the paint can and canvas and swings them into motion. The combined movement leads to hypnotizing, loopy patterns. Other times, it can be a lesson in humility with the paint can bouncing off the wall and creating misshapen lines.
Pendulum art has been around for centuries with one of the earliest references from the 19th century in England. Action painting has been in vogue since the days of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.
Newman first learned about the technique online from artist Callen Schaub. In 2020, he and a friend tested it out in his college apartment using a canvas and red solo cup hung from a broomstick. That would become his first piece, titled Spark.
His mom saw the piece and wanted one for her stairwell. So while Newman created Catalyst, his mom recorded the process and they posted the video on TikTok. It went viral with roughly 26.2 million views and 3.4 million likes.
“Spark sparked the idea and Catalyst catalyzed it into a career,” Newman says.
A painter and problem-solver
The path to Newman’s current profession has been as meandering as one of his paint lines gone wrong.
Newman grew up in Austin playing video games, basketball and water polo. He went to the University of Texas at Dallas and got a degree in interdisciplinary studies with a focus in chemistry and business administration.
Newman is also colorblind, which makes it hard for him to see blue, red, purple and pink.
“It's nothing crazy, but it's enough where I'm like, ‘Oh, I don't know what this color is.’ ”
But he’s always been creative and enjoyed solving problems. Back in high school, Newman was looking for ways to decorate his Yeti tumbler to prevent it from getting stolen. That’s when he came upon online tutorials in which people would paint their nails by dipping them into water with paint on the surface. He used that hydro-dipping technique to launch his first business: Cole’s Cups.
“I’m very, like, stubborn. I want to do it my way, things like that. So I never really saw myself working for somebody else,” he says.
For his cup painting business, he stayed home over spring break to decorate over 2,000 cups. It’s the same kind of passion he brings into his work as an action painter.
‘Follow the dopamine’
Newman still gets mesmerized by the way the paint cans make their geometric patterns on the canvas – it’s what keeps him coming back to his studio.
As he likes to say, he just “followed the dopamine.”
“Whatever makes me feel good, whatever I'm excited about, I just do that more,” he says.
That mantra seems to have served him well with a career that has continued to grow since 2020. In 2021, he had his first art show and in 2022 he had his first live performance. Earlier this year, he had his first Los Angeles show. He also recently partnered with Microsoft. Now, he wants to make a giant 3D printer that emits paint and he also wants to make the world’s largest painting that’s 20,000 square feet.
Despite all his success, not everybody is a fan. He sometimes gets hate comments on his videos questioning the fact that he makes a living from his paintings or comparing his work to something a 5-year-old would make.
Newman’s response?
“If your 5-year-old can do it or if they're doing it, amazing. Keep them going,” he says.
He’s not into gatekeeping, which is evident by the way he thinks about his collaborations.
“I think that collaboration and bringing people in here raises the tide for all creatives versus competition where I'm competing against you to sell more art or whatever else,” he says. “Because the more people that create, the more people that see it and it inspires them to create, the more beautiful stuff in the world.”
Newman just wants to make beautiful art and inspire others to do the same. At the end of the day, he’s got everything he ever wanted: a fiancée who likes snakes, his car, dog – and guacamole.
“As long as I can make enough money to get guacamole at Chipotle,” he says. “That's what I tell people is like, as long as I can confidently do that that's all I care about.”
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
