Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk
The Los Angeles Downtown Art Walk is a free, self-guided, public art phenomenon that brings together art lovers and community friends. The art walk happens every second Thursday of every month and brings exciting and unique offerings around every corner.

Many of The Downtown Art Walk activities take place in and around the galleries located on Spring and Main streets between 2nd and 9th streets. However, there are many art related events and openings, activities, and special programming that take place all over downtown.

For the true art buyers and fans, arriving early offers a more relaxing stroll through the different galleries and art exhibits. As the evening progresses, more visitors come to check out the area to meet up with friends and explore. Visitors and local downtowners can often be found enjoying the local shopping, dining and entertainment establishments that have created the vibrant community.

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MinionMe Artist: Kris Kehasukjaren


On every second Thursday of every month, Downtown Los Angeles hosts an art event called, The Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk. Here, people will find Kris Kehasukjaren sitting along the sidewalk of 5th and Spring Street painting portraits for people.

Kehasukjaren is a 25-year-old San Francisco native, who moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dreams of becoming an artist. Minion Me is his latest project, where he transforms people or any character of their choice into Minions.

“I got the inspiration to base my art on Minions from the movie Despicable Me,” he said. “Mostly everyone I know, from children to middle-aged people, find Minions to be loveable because their character is funny and cute, so I figured I’d start an art project based on Minions.”

With his determination to achieve his dream of becoming a well-known artist, he volunteers most of his time at art gallery events and festivals. His first experience showing his artwork to the public was at the 2013 Comic Con in San Diego.

“I had one week to prepare for the San Diego Comic Con. I made 50 paintings and prepped all this stuff, trying to figure out a system for myself because this was my first event I have ever participated in,” he said. “People at Comic Con loved my paintings and seeing positive feedback was the most important thing to me because then I realized I have a high chance of succeeding with this Minion Me project. I will never forget Comic Con and how successful it was because that was my first event I did with my project and I loved it.”

Ever since San Diego Comic Con, Kehasukjaren has been participating in every art event and festival in Los Angeles. On his free time when he is not at art events, he likes to take a stroll on Venice Beach and paints portraits of minions for people on the beach.

“Tourists love my paintings and they seem so fascinated with how I turned minions into an art work,” he said. “They love to see what they would look like if they were minions and their response after getting painted always surprises me and puts a smile on my face.”

Although painting and art may seem like a relaxing and enjoyable career to pursue, Kehasukjaren often finds his dream challenging and loses hope in himself. Despite all the struggles he feels, he continues to chase his dreams to keep his promise to his father and his best friend.

“Two years ago, I lost my father and my best friend to cancer within a time span of six months,” he said. “That was the hardest time for me because I felt like I had lost everything overnight. I could not eat, sleep or have a creative mind because I was in such a slump.”

Kehasukjaren spent two months working on an art piece to present to his father and his best friend before they passed. During those two months, he focused on creating something that came from his heart to show them that he loved them.

“The time I spent working on my art piece during those two months were to help me accept the fact that they were dying,” he said. “No matter what I did, I was always in denial that they had cancer and that they were going to die from the moment I heard the news. It was hard for me to accept their disease and so instead of moping around, I decided I wanted to give them something that was made purely from my emotions before they passed away.”

After two months of working on an art piece, Kehasukjaren presented them with a small mural that had pieces of his favorite memories he had with them drawn on it.

“Both my father and my best friend cried. They were so touched that when I was going through each memory that I had painted on the mural with them, I broke down too. It was the saddest yet the happiest day of my life,” he said. “To see them both so happy and touched by what I created for them made me genuinely happy and to this day, I never felt such happiness again.”

Ever since the passing of Kehasukjaren’s father and best friend, whenever he feels discouraged and hopeless, he reminds himself of the promise he made to his father. The promise to never give up on his dreams and to keep pushing himself to become the person he wants to be is embedded into Kehasukjaren’s mind.

“My dad was such a big part of my life and the promise I made with him means so much to me that I have to succeed no matter what,” he said. “I have to do whatever it takes to become the person I envision myself to be and honestly, what keeps me going everyday is the promise I made with my dad. I know he’s watching over me and I don’t want to let him down.”

Minion Me was the project he started after the death of his father and best friend. Kehasukjaren continues to attend art events to bring the public’s attention of his Minion Me project. Currently, he is selling over 100 minion paintings a week and has become known to the public through his persistence in his work. Kehasukjaren has high expectations and goals of where his Minion Me project will go.

Meet the Minion Me Artist

A Short Intro to Kris Kehasukjaren

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