Vittoria Benzine

Vittoria Benzine is a street art journalist and creative nonfiction essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. Since leaving her rural Pennsylvanian town, she has lived in disparate nooks of the city’s architecture, ranging from the Bronx to Bensonhurst. Her myriad career paths mirror this same pattern, and she has worked in entertainment, food service, fashion, and corporate consultancy. Through it all, Vittoria returns to writing with the intention to not only sort through her own experiences, but to share herself with the greater consciousness she feels so connected to.

Listen, it's the same story you already know so well. Overbearing ego paired with crippling self doubt. When I tell people I'm a writer, they assume fame and fortune aren't important values of mine, but they're wrong. I'm in it for the glory. That, and the ethereal catharsis provided by uninhibited self expression. 

I've never felt a feeling that didn't knock me off my feet. Last week, I cried on the G train listening to "Bennie and the Jets" because I didn't get to experience the 70s. Weeks before, I sat down on Rivington en route to an art show in the dead of winter, gathering my hair in my hands as I struggled to cope with the chaos of reality. 

Authenticity from every individual poses the only hope for saving what I see as an ailing society. I have overcome a great deal of emotional hardship to achieve the clarity I strive to present you with. When I'm not tearing at the seams, I write about street art. I write personal essays. I like modeling and making art when the mood is right. Check out the pages on my sidebar to find my work. 

My Favorite Pieces

Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art •

Iris Scott’s The Big Wonderful

For the past six months, renowned finger painting maestro Iris Scott has been working in a quaint shack outside of a little town called Coyote, New Mexico. In New York City, Scott established a strong reputation among critics like Jerry Saltz and Anthony Haden-Guest — as well as a significant social media following — for her dizzying use of color in painting scenes of startling intricacy using only her be-gloved hands. Now, near Coyote, once proclaimed “the toughest town in the West” by The Chic
The Smart Set •

Smile Like You Mean It

I shot to the surface of post-grad life just below the Verrazano Bridge, my lungs choked with the bay’s refuse. College had been all riptides and sea squalls that dismantled my former identity centered around childhood’s structure. I’d once considered myself responsible, but that sense waned when circumstances shifted significantly for the first time in my life. College found me living a slapdash existence, propped up by the certainty pre-paid room and board offered. No one told me I should be s
street art united states •

Mexican artists Said Dokins, Cix, and Spaik Bring Vibrancy to Maximum Security Penitentiary in Morelia, Mexico

I’m interested in beliefs. I’m interested in those beliefs that sit at the foundation of an individual’s character, where all corollary beliefs, perspectives, and in turn, personality traits spring from. I’m interested in lowest common denominators. In my experience discerning my own beliefs, a necessary function of growth, I’ve come to find that the strongest ones do not disintegrate under difficult circumstances. They may waver, but they don’t fall apart. If they do, they’re not beliefs but c
LUMINA •

By Any Means —

Three drags from an Uber driver’s cigarette bolstered my facade of calm. I swallowed the acidic taste in the back of my throat and stepped through the entrance for my first glimpse into Richard’s apartment. It was bigger than anything I’d ever seen in New York, with a spacious terrace featuring panoramic views of Central Park and the frosty Upper East Side. Black and white tiles gave the floor a sense of antiquity. I noticed a thin layer of dust covering everything and thought, Couldn’t he affor
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