By Jim Hiller (originally published in the D&HCanvas)

The antics of the Teutul family may be nothing special to the folks in Orange County, New York, but for millions of TV viewers across the globe, Discovery Channel's American Chopper has fed the weekly appetite of those craving high tech bike building mixed with lowbrow verbal exchanges.

Now the show's junior star, Mikey Teutul, has emulated his brother Paul Jr. and father Paul Sr. by opening his own business, the Wolf Gang Gallery in Montgomery. But unlike his kin, Mikey's pursuit is fine art, and his preferred medium is commercial-grade canned paint on canvas.

Teutul's works are generally characterized by their large sizes, modest use of color, and uncomplicated compositions. Many are monotone, and admittedly take him minutes, or even seconds, to execute by pouring or splattering the paint on the canvas. With no formal training, the results tend to be raw, palpably expressive, and befitting of his unconstrained, amiable TV persona.

Recently, the Discovery Channel filmed the opening party at the Wolf Gang Gallery for an upcoming TV episode, attended by members of the Orange County Arts Council, family and friends. In past episodes, Mikey's artistic undertaking has not always been taken seriously by the crew at his brother's shop. "The biggest kick for me was seeing my brother's and mother's faces when they came in and they saw that the place actually looked professional... that I'm being constructive, and not destructive. That I'm making a real go at something," says Teutul.

As for the big leap to his own commercial space, "You know, what you really need for a gallery is white walls and paintings. I had the paintings, so I was just hoping to find a space to put the white walls. And I have, and I love it. This place has a real New York City feel, and there's a quality to that, especially being that we're kind of a starter kit right now."

While his painting career is a recent undertaking, his love for art goes back some time. "I've made some trips to museums in the city. At the Met I saw some real masterpieces from long ago. At MOMA, I was awed by Pollack's real depth and different levels of emotion. I visited the Guggenheim to see some wacky, crazy stuff - sculpture art, ropes hanging from ceilings, turning into piles on the ground. That was kind of a lesson in how B.S. could be presented as art too. And that people would apparently pay top dollar for it."

Mikey's foray into creating art is a more recent event. "I started painting about two years ago, out of boredom. I was working at Orange County Choppers, and I was sort of aimlessly wondering what to do with myself. I felt like a kind of Vegas act, waiting to meet and greet people at the door. The producer Adam suggested I do some portraits of the cast and crew, people I'm very fond of. So I started painting everybody. I didn't think anyone would want to buy any of my art, I just wanted to paint.

"I really enjoyed it, and I found it therapeutic. I became obsessed with it, and that was probably a good thing. If I don't concentrate my addictive behavior on something positive, it will definitely go to the negative, I don't make any bones about that."

That obsession is evident in his studio area - he has 5 or 6 new paintings in progress at a time, and many drying against chairs and tables. The workroom walls are randomly spattered in paint and decorated with cryptic images (he'd only been open for a month at the time of this interview). He appears totally engrossed in the process.

"I think the monster of addiction shows up in a lot of my work. Anybody who has an addictive nature can tell you that there is some kind of wickedness to it, and I have some evil pictures, horrific blotches of things, running through my head. It's nice to express that on canvas, rather than abuse myself, like I used to."

And he's a fairly laid back fellow to be producing such edgy stuff. "If you know me, you know I'm a jovial kind of guy. I try not to let much bother me. Even running my business, I try not to have steam blowing out of my ears. I honestly try not to be my father's son in that way, and I don't mean any disrespect to him in that sense, but blowing my top is not going to help me."

Over the past two years, Mikey's artwork has evolved. Once producing only small cartoonish portraits, he has aquired a more abstract expressionist style, and gone much larger. "I started painting people by working with still shots of folks like Tom Waits, and Jack Nicholson from The Shining, Heath Ledger in the new Batman. I'm not sure I did the greatest renditions of them, but I began loving my work," he laughs. "It was hilarity, but I enjoyed it. Then I started throwing paint on a little more, and calculating my brushstrokes, simplifying, letting it go a little more.

"I watched the movie Pollack, and I couldn't believe what he was doing. I went to MOMA and saw his work in person. My art isn't supposed to emulate Pollack, I'm not trying to be him, but I am inspired by him. He has such real depth and different levels of emotion. The most I can hope for is that people find my art freeky, fun, weird and enjoyable. Put it this way, he's like Merril Streep, and I'm like Britney Spears."

As for other favorite artists, "I'm sort of an infatuation guy, I get obsessed with somebody. A good buddy of mine gave me a mongraph by the minimalist cartoonist Bill Steig. And I've been doing a lot of sketching, quick sketches with sharpie, and a title or emotion with the sketch. Quick, mental association stuff, that a shrink would find interesting. And in this book, Bill Steig was doing the same thing 60, 70 years ago. He would put across a concept or emotion in the simplest form possible. He's been an inspiration to me."

Looking at the artwork in the gallery, my initial impression of certain pieces was a lot of splatters or squiggly lines, but further contemplation of many of them begin to reveal what might be a face, or eyes, or a figure. Was I imagining things, or is this deliberate?

"My friend calls it matrixing (not like where Keanu Reeves is going to jump out), but where you can see a face in random images or shadows. I gauge people's creative capacity by whether they can still see things in the clouds like they could when they were young. For me it's always deliberate - I always try to put a face in there somewhere. I'll go with the natural motion of the painting, I throw and spread the paint. The faces find themselves."

With titles like Radio Activist, Avocado'keefe, Dirty Charles, and Poodle Jazz, Teutul's pieces are thought-provoking as well as visually assaulting. There's a story behind each painting's title that he's happy to share with gallery visitors without much prodding.

Here's one I asked him about - Poodle Jazz. Several large splats of yellow paint on a white canvas, more or less. "Poodle Jazz I did in 8 seconds. I mixed the paint and poured it directly from the can. I wanted to see what I could do in quick movements in one shot. I got it done, and my friend Jeffrey said it looked like a poodle. We took our cigarettes and pushed the ashes into where the eyes would be and it hardened and encased the ashes there permanently. It also looks like it has some music notes tied into it. So there's the title."

Now, the painting has a price of $850, and it took 8 seconds. I did some quick math, and it appears that Mikey has the potential to create over $6000 dollars worth of artwork per minute. I asked him if that would that be a fair statement? "Yes, I can make more money than A-Rod." He smiles and adds, "And I can write pop hits at will, as well."

As for his immediate plans in 2011, "Straight to the Louvre! But seriously, I'll be happy if I can make enough to keep my doors open, afford some paint and canvas, and continue to do what I enjoy."

The Wolf Gang Gallery is located at 40 Railroad Avenue in the Village of Montgomery NY, USA.