Multimedia artist and bon vivant Christian Rosa is riding a high wave in the contemporary art market. There's the sell-out pencil and oil paintings at 2013's Frieze New York, mentors in Raymond Pettibon and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and a new solo show at London's White Cube, Put Your Eye in Your Mouth.

Having embedded himself in the creative underbelly of his native Vienna, Rosa moved to LA to expand his portfolio that includes abstracted faces, body parts and messages that all lean on high-modernism. The punkish, spontaneous universe he creates is coveted by collectors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Courtney Love) and galleries alike (Saatchi, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo), as crystallized in this fly-on-the-wall film by Ace Norton. "I discovered how a work apparently led by chance and free gesture is actually the result of a great reflection and sophisticated thought," notes long-time patron Patrizia Sandretto of her first encounter with Rosa.  

Saatchi Gallery's Philippa Adams, meanwhile, adds: "Christian incorporates the 'threat' of mistakes and allows himself to an open-ended pictorial narrative." 

Christian Rosa’s solo show Put Your Eye in Your Mouth opens today at White Cube, London, and runs through May 23.

Igor Ramirez Garcia-Peralta is Art-Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS.