.jpg)
Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Welcome to 'Stripping Off with Matt Haycox,' where we bare it all on business, money, and life. Get ready to peel back the layers of success with entrepreneur, investor, funding expert, and mentor with over 20 years of experience building and growing businesses, Matt Haycox.
Tune into steamy conversations with industry titans, celebrities, and successful entrepreneurs as they strip down their stories of triumphs, setbacks, and the raw realities of their journey to the top. Matt is going down on business, money, and life, and will take DMCs to new heights!
Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
Domingo: The Artist Who Couldn't Afford Pizza & Now Sells Paintings For Millions (The TRUTH About Art & Value)
Tell us what you like or dislike about this episode!! Be honest, we don't bite!
International artist and fashion icon Domingo Zapata joins Matt Haycox for a no-BS chat about art, brand, and building a multimillion-dollar empire with paint, passion, and patience. From hustling for leftover pizza in the Bronx to painting Keith Richards and collecting Patek Philippe watches, Domingo shares how he went from broke to global, without ever selling out.
This episode dives deep into:
- Why marketing doesn’t sell $2M paintings, but brand does.
- The difference between painting what you see vs what you feel.
- How luxury is about story, not price tag, from Screaming Eagle wine to Rolex.
- Why discipline, not drugs, fuels Domingo’s creativity.
- The real return on investment of art: emotion, legacy, and status.
Plus, Domingo and Matt get real about fame, fakes, and why he’d never sell his Tiffany Patek, even for $4 million.
Timestamps:
00:00 – This Is Not Your Average Podcast…
01:16 – Meet Domingo Zapata: The Artist Who Paints With Fire
03:07 – Inside the TUKTUK Gallery: Where Chaos Meets Creativity
06:17 – A Bar Chat Like No Other – The Truth Starts Pouring
10:00 – Domingo Plays Piano… And It’s Not What You Expect
16:54 – A Game of Pool, A Masterclass in Life Lessons
30:47 – The Sit-Down: Fame, Failure, and Finding Purpose
54:09 – Final Words That’ll Stay With You
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Welcome to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox
This isn’t your average business podcast. It’s where real entrepreneurs, celebs, and industry leaders strip back the polished PR, and get brutally honest about the journeys that made them.
Hosted by entrepreneur and investor Matt Haycox, Stripping Off dives into the raw, unfiltered realities behind success: the wins, the fuck-ups, the breakthroughs, and everything in between. No scripts. No sugar-coating. Just real talk from people who’ve lived it.
Whether you’re hustling to scale your business or just love a behind-the-scenes look at how people really make it, this podcast is your front-row seat to the truth behind the triumphs.
Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer
That is that guest. Well, he actually really, really lives it. I'm sitting down with domingo zapata and he's one of the most in-demand artists on the planet. His paintings hang in the homes of johnny depp, leonardo dicaprio, and he's even painted with the pope. But it didn't start with fame and a million pound canvas for this guy. This is a guy who once couldn't even afford a slice of pizza, a guy who painted out of raw emotion, not for profit, and someone who built his career not by chasing money but by staying obsessively committed to his vision. We talk about everything from the value of self-belief and creative discipline to building emotional connection through your work. He's turned his pain into pop art, his struggle into storytelling and his name into a global brand.
Speaker 1:If you're a creative, a founder or just someone who wants to build something real in a noisy world, then this one's for you. Domingo drops wisdom told you I just can't paint. I can't paint it. My life depends. I can't draw, I can't do anything, and you said in three days you'd be able to teach me to be able to paint a dog, as if it looked like a picture. Like a picture. Yeah. People often say to me you know, or people often talk about. Anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can be a business owner, and I disagree with that, you know, because you know there's certain characters. People can learn many skills, but there's some things that people just aren't made to be. But I mean, like when you say, within three days you can paint a dog like a picture, you almost make me think anyone can be an artist. But do you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Everybody can paint a dog that looks like a dog.
Speaker 1:How is that different to being an artist?
Speaker 2:Well, because being an artist is about painting what you feel, not what you see. So for me, your dog has more value than you know an imperialistic dog. If I want to take a painting that looks like a photograph, I might just get the photograph. When I take a painting, I want to feel something. It's organic, it's alive, it changes every day. Light makes a change, life makes a change. I don't know how to make this world a better place, but I think I know how to make it a beautiful place for the people that can make it better. So that's my opinion. So, yeah, I can teach you how to cook, but why. A chef can make something magical and you take the recipe and you can't. It's not about the recipe, it's about the touch.
Speaker 1:And I mean speaking to you and speaking to so many artists. You know they talk about the fact that it's not for the money, it's for the love and loving everything and the do. But I think people listening to that would also say that it's easy for you to say that when you get paid so much for doing what you love yeah, I would like to take them to.
Speaker 2:When I lived in the bronx in um bombette with another three people for a couple years, when I started, I would like to go to the day when I had to go, wait for a pizza place to shut down so that I could get free pizza. That's where I could eat. It's not that easy, man. It takes. Like you said to me, how long did it take you to make that painting? I said 25 years, because you know this is today and I say, hey, go ahead and do it, but it's not an easy road. It's not an easy road. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of discipline, a lot of hours, I a lot of hours. I didn't have a Cosmopolitan at 12 for the last 25 years, meaning you know it didn't start like that and did you? This is only a few years ago that you get to enjoy what you're doing, your moment and your hard work.
Speaker 1:When you were living with those three guys and you know you couldn't afford to eat a pizza, did you see success in your future? Did you ever think there was a big money end, or did you just love what you were?
Speaker 2:doing and you didn't give a. Well, you know what I mean. I. I think that that you, just I mean you dream, you have dreams and then when you dream, you want to make your dreams come true. So, of course, I was. I still have dreams, you know, thank god, I do. What's it? What do you dream about?
Speaker 2:Now, I cannot tell you, you know, but I do have a lot of dreams, but it's life is about progress. You know, life is about growth and and find yourself in challenges that you change things so that you make them more difficult, so you can, you know, get out of the box and create all the things. That's my obligation as an artist is to continue doing that, not being in the stability of the money and the. That's not. I don't do it for that, you know, I never did it. For that I am very happy that I get to enjoy, while I'm alive, you know, the profits of my hard work. However, as an artist, it doesn't. You don't. You're not a better artist because you get paid. You're not going to be a better artist because you get paid more than others. You know, I think the best artists probably are not recognized, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:I mean, is it just brand and publicity that gets people paid? Because I mean, I have, have. I have a terrible eye and you know, I guess, to my naked, non-artist eye. I look at many artists nowadays and say, well, I can't really tell the difference between him and him who you know. They have a similar style. That's five hundred dollars and that's five million dollars. It Is the difference, just brand.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, let's talk about this Now. Do you know what the difference is? And you're an investment guy, so the difference is collateral damage. Now, if you buy a painting that is $500, that is not going anywhere, that you don't like, that you buy just because it's cheap, well then you get what you buy. If you buy a painting by Picasso that is $50 million, you not only have a piece of history, but you have value. Safety. That's the difference. So what gives you safety?
Speaker 2:The trajectory, marketing, is bullshit. Marketing doesn't make people buy paintings for $ million dollars or 10 million or 50 million. Marketing puts your name out there to be evaluated as anything. But if you put marketing, people are gonna give you a billion dollars just because of your marketing. No, but they might give you half a million to start and then, if you're good, they'll give you everything else that they find is okay. It's just the same. This you know.
Speaker 2:Safety is that you have a trajectory that is giving you that. Safety is that you love the painting and you're going to enjoy it and you don't care about the money, because I always say to people but you think it's a good investment. I'm like I thought you were a businessman making a lot of money. Make money in your business. Don't try to make money on these paintings. These paintings should give you the return on experience, the return on love, the return on safety, the return on love, the return on safety, the return on. You know a passion and you know the return investment. Do it at home, with your, at your office, with your business.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've always done that when I you know, and I know nothing about art other than what I like. I was telling you a minute ago that you know, I, over the years I've bought a lot of La Chapelle. I've bought a lot of Gavin Bond and listen, I can understand from the dealers. I can look on Artnet, I can see where some investment value should be. But I always take the view look, if I lose the money, then am I going to enjoy that on my wall.
Speaker 2:And I think that's Gavin Bond pictures of girls in underwear. Listen, I'm going to fucking love that all day long.
Speaker 1:I wish it was worth 50k and not the 10k I paid or whatever the figure was.
Speaker 2:But if it's worth nothing, then you know at least you're enjoying, and that's the thing that you got to look at when you're buying art right now from a contemporary artist like me that is alive. You want to make an investment, then go to Goldman Sachs and buy an art investment fund and you have Picasso, ali Ceslebi, foucault, warhol and all these guys and you are invested to make money. But you might as well just invest in something else. If you want to buy a painting and you're not into what are you going to do? Trade paintings Now, at the end, the pleasure is to own it, to have it, but also to know that your value of that painting is an asset that has a history. But obviously I mentioned brand and that's very important.
Speaker 1:I mentioned brand and just the thing, because wine, I mean, I would consider wine almost in the art class. You know the kind of wines that we drink. A week or two ago, I was with an investor of mine and we drank a bottle of Screaming Eagle. You know Screaming Eagle? Yeah, it's only the second bottle I've ever drunk of it. Did I love it? Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, do I think? It's probably 10 times more expensive than this Vagas.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Do? I think it's 10 times better than this? Not at all. I mean, like to me, we're at a level where they're all amazing wines. I'd rather talk about the fact that I've had a great day with you today drinking this and having fun. That's more important than saying, oh, I drank the Screaming Eagle. It's $3,000, $4,000 a bottle. You know what I mean. A bottle, you know? I mean I guess branding does come into play at some point yeah, of course, of course it does.
Speaker 2:but you know, I mean, they don't produce many bottles, they're not everywhere. It's more exclusive. This you know. I mean I think in in these things you don't need to concentrate at all in what they cost. I go to certain restaurants and I don't care about the bill, I just want to have the experience. So when you start valuing wine, this okay, you can find wines that are 10 euro, that are amazing, incredible. When you drink a hominic on tea, that is 70,000 euro bottle, okay, then what are you really drinking? You're drinking history, because that's from Roman times. So these winters are so old that the root is down into the minerals. Everything that is absorbed is so incredible and it's so small that the production is very minimal and is amazing.
Speaker 2:Now, 200 meters from it, you have other, but they don't have 2,000 years history, they're not deep in there. So this is what you're paying. You're paying history. You're paying something that almost nobody in the world can have. You're enjoying that experience. You are getting return on experience, again, not an investment. So if you take away the value of things like that, then maybe you will like that wine. But you're saying, is this worth 3,000 euros? Fuck. No, but you're just thinking about the money. Now just close your eyes and just drink it and then be like fuck. And then they tell you, oh, it has 2,000 years of history. And then you're like how fortunate I am to be alive and be able to taste this.
Speaker 1:Hey, matt here. Thanks for listening to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, but did you also know I've got another podcast, no Bollocks, with Matt Haycox. Both of these are very different. If you're enjoying the deep dives with the guests that I have every week on Stripping Off, then you're going to love the quick, short business tips, strategies and tactics I give you on no Bollocks. This comes out nearly every day. Make sure you go and check it out on iTunes, spotify, youtube, wherever you listen to your content, and I'll see you in a future episode.
Speaker 1:That's hard as well. No, I'm so with you. I mean, do you feel the same logic with many luxury items? I mean, obviously, I've noticed your watch when we came in. I mean, you know the, the rarest of rare pateks. You know, yeah, I, I, I love pateks.
Speaker 1:I've, you know, had various pateks over the years and it's funny. You know people, I know so many people that go patek patek. But I think the reason you like it is because it sells in the aftermarket, for, you know, for more than it sells at retail, would you? Would you? I'm not saying I, I'm not saying I'm that person, but all these people that love it, you love it because you can buy it in the store for 45k. If you could buy it in the store for 45k and it sells for 150k, or it's 200k and it sells for a million, that's why you love it. If I told you you buy it in the store for 200k and tomorrow it's worth 70k, do you love it so much? Or all of a sudden, the arm goes out the window, you know I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:I got this as a as as the. It was $55,000. Right, you know. But when I got this I didn't know that it would be worth three, four million. So I got it because I loved it and I had an opportunity to get it. So I bought it. But not knowing what's going to happen to this watch Now, I would never sell it.
Speaker 2:Even if they gave me 4 million, why would I sell it? I love it. My business is not selling watches, my business is creating beautiful art. So that's what I mean. I, when I got it, I threw an opportunity because I love the Tiffany color and I had the Rolex that is Tiffany and I collect. Like I said, I collect art, I collect watches and I like to have it. Art. I collect watches and I like to have it. But I will never sell anything that I collect.
Speaker 2:What other watches do you like? You know, I like Rolex, I like Fatech, I like Richard Mille, I like everything, man, I like anything. And by saying that I love the Omega swatch, you know that they made I. You know about the moon and this. There's so many things that I.
Speaker 2:It depends on what cuts your eye, but I never consider price. If I like something, I say can I afford it? Okay, if I can afford it, then I'm going to buy it, but never thinking about the value, but never thinking about the value, only how. What does it take for me to get something that I love? That, I think, is going to make me feel better, because if I this, you have a watch and you can have a sword, any watch, an Apple watch, and it's going to give you the time. But when I look at my watch, I look about my life, my success. It encourages me, it challenges me to keep doing things, because I'm like, oh, I come from this humble background and look what I got and this reminds me of where I am. It makes me feel good For me, only for me.
Speaker 1:Looking at it the other way around. When you sell a painting for a million dollars 500,000, you know, when you told me earlier you sold a painting for two million dollars oh, no one, A lot. Oh, okay, do you? I mean, do you look back at yourself and think, fuck, I was that guy that couldn't afford a pizza. I've just sold a painting for two million. Or if that same guy offered you said to you, I'm not going to pay you two million because you talk about it being for love, if he said to you I'm not going to pay you two million, I'm going to pay you a million, do you still sell it? Or do you also have the finance and the science as well, as you are?
Speaker 2:So well, listen, I can sell it for two million so you're paying that two million, like I mean, these special paintings are expensive and you have to respect the price because you respect the people that bought it, you know. So you can't just you know, just think of it. You cannot, just, you know, change the prices because you like someone, because this that At the end I normally give people that start at the very beginning. I'm like, if you're going to start a collection, then on the first painting I'll give you a discount, but from there on, the price is the price. So we do like and how does the price work?
Speaker 1:It changes every year. It changes with the season Again it depends on the demand.
Speaker 2:You know, if I get 2,000 calls to buy paintings tomorrow, then I'm not going to sell them. Yeah, you know, then I'm not gonna sell them. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna. Okay, wait a minute. What have I done so that this is happening? And so it's about offer and demand, like like everything. You know, maybe nobody wants my paintings next year, maybe something happens, and you know, and it's over. Then, you know, the prices go down. There's no demand. It's not about there's no demand. It's not about me. It's not about you putting the price or not. It's about what people are willing to pay. So the same, if you know this rhino beautiful pink rhino is, nobody wants it in five years. Well, I think I might look for a new job, you know. But if every time somebody sees it wants it, well then you know, like everything value, you've got to get paid for that.
Speaker 1:Have you made any what you would consider terrible career mistakes? You know there's a particular painting, a particular situation.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not very. You know what there's no mistakes. I'm a very. You know what there's no mistakes. I'm a very normal person at the end, considering everything that you see, but I cannot make a mistake. My only mistake would be to be lazy, not to paint or to drive myself into painting commercially and not exclusively. That would be a mistake. To sell myself to merchandising, to sell myself to massive, do you think that? Is a mistake, a huge mistake. Why?
Speaker 2:Because you know the difference between a picture of that rhino you can take a picture now and the painting. You know the differences. One's real, one's not right. No one is a picture and one is a painting. It's a real painting 150,000 euro. That's the difference. So you know, if you want to get the real thing, you have to pay for it. Like everything you want to buy a good watch, a good car, a good meal. You know you can get a grilled cheese sandwich. It can be shit and you can make a beautiful grilled cheese sandwich. That is amazing.
Speaker 1:It's interesting what you say about you gotta pay for it.
Speaker 1:One's real one's not. So I, two or three years ago, I bought a Bored Ape. You know the NFT. Now I bought one. To be clear. If I could have chosen any Bored Ape of the 10,000 they made, it would have been that one. It was, you know, it was smoking a cigar, it was wearing a jacket, it had a tattoo. It was, it was every, everything about me. Yes, I could have screenshotted and had exactly exactly the same thing on the wall, but I also know it wasn't. In the same way, I could have a fake attack, yeah, and and for me, a. I knew it was what it was, but being it put me in that club. It put me with the other Bordeaux owners, you know, with the other Patek owners. It's about how you feel.
Speaker 2:It's about how you feel. It's what I said. It's not about the price and the value. It's about how you feel when you love something, when something motivates you, when something makes you want to do more, create more. That's what it is about that you feel okay, I did a good job, I came from here and I was able to achieve this beautiful piece of art that I love. At the end, that's what it is. You look at it and be proud of yourself.
Speaker 1:I noticed Keith Richards on the wall. Obviously, we're drinking wine following our cosmopolitans at about 12 o'clock, one o'clock in the afternoon. A lot of the, a lot of the most famous, I'll say artists, but I typically talk about musicians, but I guess people in the creative space, a lot of the most creative people, are known for their chronic drug abuse, alcohol abuse, etc. But these people also cite that as a reason for their creativity, for the reason of their success. You know, I mean I'm a big Guns N' Roses fan and they always talk about that. I know, axl, oh really, I've got tickets. Are you back next week? Do you want to come with me next week to come and see Axl, maybe? So I mean, they talk about the best albums, the best songs.
Speaker 1:They made they talk about the fact that during their most fucked up drug abuse times they had the best creativity they made. They made the best stuff. How how much do you believe or can you relate?
Speaker 2:never, never. I I, you know what I don't drink when I paint normally, I mean, sometimes I get excited and then most likely I will delete what I did when I, you know, I think that for me the responsibility is so high that I cannot be high when I'm working. However, I understand that in other, like in music and in other arts, you know, that can open For me. I was always, you know, I was never a big fan of getting fucked up. I like to. If I'm going to have fun, then I want to have fun and do something fun. Go to a concert, go to this, you know, in New York, especially where you know the freedom is bigger. But for working, I like to stay focused and stay in my place.
Speaker 1:And why are some of these people so successful in a state of being so focused?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess practice. Like Churchill said, I like to wake up early and paint and then do my job and express myself in that way, not saying that I haven't experimented with painting, you know, while I've been under an influence of a drug or whatever.
Speaker 1:And it looks like one of my stick dogs.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. I'm sure it probably looks great, but you know, I mean my discipline, and in this world you must have discipline. Maybe back in the day, 40, 50 years ago, in the 70s, you know, they came from so much repression that you needed to open up, and all that For me, my life, considering the challenges that I've had. But I've never had to experience what maybe artists in the 40s, during the Second World War, had to experience, or, you know, being exiled, forced to be exiled, forced to be in situations, abuse and immigrants, and we just saw the brutalists. And it tells so many stories about people that have struggled so much. Fortunately for me, my career has been pretty straightforward. I've struggled, like everybody, you know, and I got to a point where I'm comfortable and then now I can experiment and do different things. But I'm 50, so I'm not going to get fucked up to paint because it's too late and I have two kids and I have, you know, a wife. That is, you know, like the policia the police.
Speaker 2:Where is she? She's here. She is now here. She comes back and forth from Spain. So you know, I mean at the end when I work, but it's been like that all my life. I just kind of did it straight from my heart, without an intermediary. That's for work, now for fun. Let's just have fun this summer in Mallorca. Cheers, let's have fun. It was a pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 1:No, listen, I've genuinely, genuinely loved today so much. I was making a video earlier saying that you know I feel very privileged.
Speaker 2:I hope your you know I feel very privileged. I hope this experience doesn't make you quit making podcasts.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not. It also is the opposite. I was making a little video when we started saying that you know, I feel very privileged to have a podcast because I get to meet all kinds of different people and everybody's so different. I mean, I could meet the most boring guy in the world with the most incredible knowledge and I love that podcast Literally. Last week I did a two-hour podcast it's kind of boring, huh.
Speaker 1:But, but the not, but no, but the knowledge. The knowledge is interesting. You know, last week I did a two-hour podcast with it, with a gang killer for a gang killer from california. A gang killer, you mean, like he was in a gang and he and he, he shot up a car here. No, in in in california. Oh, you were in california. No, we did it on Zoom. I didn't want to get too close to him in case he pulled out that gun.
Speaker 2:Be careful buddy, I know I give you a glass of wine. He might give you a bullet.
Speaker 1:He doesn't like what you say. We were talking two hours about, you know, life in jail and killing people, and you know I get to experience these incredible conversations with people that I feel very fortunate to do, but you know, today has been an utterly unique day. Thank you, it's a pleasure and even though I got my ass kicked at pool I mean I lost on purpose because I didn't want to. You have to give that painting away, but I'm going to look forward to you painting the first boba that's ever been painted by a famous artist. So, domingo, all right, muchas gracias, thank you. Thank you very much.
%20(1)%20-%20Copy.png)
