Catching up with Justin T. Russo on his art, steamy content, and upcoming book!

21st August 2026 Bryce Quartz

We caught up with artist and writer Justin T. Russo to talk about his recent artwork, steamy content, and his upcoming new book! Check it out below.

If this is your first introduction to Justin, check out all the coverage we’ve done of him in the past by clicking here, or stick around to get to know him here. You may also recognize him more without clothes on from Twitter under the name NYCMeatball where he releases sexy clips and full versions of them on JustForFans or OnlyFans, but he’s much more than just an insatiable content creator.

Justin T. Russo is a New York–based illustrator, curator, writer, and Intimacy Archivist whose work examines queer Italian-American life, desire, memory, masculinity, grief, and the ethics of connection.

He began his professional art career as a teenager, later working in Takashi Murakami’s studio and spending a decade curating and stewarding blue-chip private art collections, all of which are experiences that shaped his interest in provenance, preservation, and the emotional life of objects.

Russo’s illustration work has been featured by The New York Times, and his artwork has entered the collections of cultural figures including Lauren Bacall, Billy Joel, Parker Posey, Kelly Ripa, and Raúl Esparza. He created a WorldPride mural in New York in 2019 and also appeared on Logo’s Fire Island.

After nearly two decades inside New York nightlife and queer social culture, Russo created NYCMeatball, an erotic documentary and visual archive treating sex as lived evidence rather than disposable content.

Through his first book that he’s currently working on titled The Gentleman’s Guide to Slutty Sex: Studies in Intimacy, Justin will be publishing essays, drawings, audio reflections, family history, and archival material examining intimacy across its erotic, familial, historical, and cultural forms.

The book might be about sex on paper, but it uses sex to examine desire, ethics, warmth, masculinity, intimacy, and how men treat one another. The 65 different Studies in Intimacy from his book come from lived experience and function as evidence for the larger philosophy.

The erotic work matters because he refuses the premise that sex and intellectual seriousness, or promiscuity and tenderness, are opposites. OnlyFans and JustForFans aren’t separate from the ethics of the Guide. They are places where the philosophy is actually lived and documented: real chemistry, consent, affection, desire, humor, and what happens between people rather than sex manufactured simply as content.

His updated website now gives all of these practices one front door to all of his work. What looked for years like several different careers has become legible to me as one continuous practice concerned with intimacy, memory, preservation, and human connection.

I got to interview him about all of the different buckets he’s got his hands is in and more, check it out below!

Bryce Quartz: Hey there, Justin! Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, I know you’ve been busy working on your book. How are you feeling lately?

Justin T. Russo: Hey Bryce, thank you for the time! Busy is an understatement. Since beginning this project, I have been pretty jazzed on getting my ideas on paper and sharing my perspectives.

Bryce: I’m excited for everything you’ve been working on and love seeing all the hard work you’ve been putting in!

I want to get some more background on you for our readers. You’re quite an amazing illustrator and your work really speaks for itself. Was there something that initially sparked your interest in becoming an artist, what were some of your inspirations back then, and what are some of your current inspirations?

Justin: I have been drawing since age 2 and was determined to pursue my dream of being an artist. I have always been drawn to capturing an idea with my hand and preserving it, ultimately to preserve the moment. My first job out of college was with artist Takashi Murakami which led to my path as a curator for private collections.

My mission has been the same since childhood, but of course refined. My influences have evolved from the joy the Care Bears sparked when I was a toddler to the agency and authorship of the stars of Post-War Hollywood, particularly Rita Hayworth and Lauren Bacall.

Justin’s World Pride NYC mural from 2019

Bryce: I think that is extremely cool that you worked for Murakami, especially because I have one of his pieces as a small carpet in my room.

I spent some time going through your website and browsed most of your art. You’ve crafted some really amazing pieces and worked with iconic people within the industry as well as with some awesome organizations. What are some of your personal favorite highlights over the years?

Justin: By far, having my portrait of Lauren Bacall hanging in her apartment. Being able to portray an idol at age 25 and to have it hanging in her home is surreal.

At 40, I now understand the actress differently and how her career arc is an inspiration for me. It’s come full circle. I was also fortunate to be one of fifty artists to have my own mural for World Pride New York and create artwork for Billy Joel’s concert playbills.

Bryce: Yeah, that is insanely cool to have your work hanging in Lauren Bacall’s apartment, and I love the mural you did for World Pride! You should absolutely be proud of all that you’ve done.

One of my personal favorite series that I saw on your website is titled “WHAT A DRAG” and features some of the most iconic drag queen fixtures that we all know and love. Can you tell me a little bit more about this series?

Justin: WHAT A DRAG is a portrait series drawn from lived proximity, being present with, learning from, and witnessing firsthand the ethics, showmanship, and embodiment of drag queens. The work is rooted in years of a shared space: nightlife ecosystems.

In my early twenties, I was barbacking at a Chelsea staple with Peppermint and Tina Burner and forged decades-long bonds that forged my insight into the community.

This series functions as both celebration and record. It insists that these artists be held in queer and cultural memory with seriousness, rigor, and respect.

Bryce: I love your work and want some of it on my wall, especially now that I know the story behind this series! Will you be selling some of your pieces from this series and do you have plans to sell from any of your other series?

Justin: The original drawings (and subsequent prints) can be found on my website for purchase in addition to select drawings from other recent series including ICONS & IDOLS which celebrates the women who shaped my queer identity.

Available now, I’m also releasing a small limited-edition print series drawn from four of my favorite cinematic nightmares: Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp from Death Becomes Her, Catwoman from Batman Returns, and Winifred Sanderson from Hocus Pocus.

I’ve always been drawn to women in movies who are allowed to become enormous: glamorous, furious, absurd, sexual, dangerous, and very funny. These characters are monsters only in the most complimentary sense of the word. They take up the entire frame.

The drawings come out of my larger fascination with film history and portraiture, but this little group is pure seasonal pleasure: camp, glamour, death, resurrection, witchcraft, PVC, and several extremely questionable life choices.

The set of four custom limited-edition prints will be available through JustinTRusso.com for $50 each plus shipping through October!

Bryce: I will be checking that out for sure, I need some of your work on my wall! Art is so much more meaningful when it has a story behind it and especially when it’s made from a queer person.

Besides being an experienced artist yourself, you also curate art too. Can you share some of your favorite experiences curating art and describe what that process is like?

Justin: Art curation is finding the through-line of a collection, often finding the missing links and filling the gap, and creating a cohesive set of works that speak to one another in order to relay a story.

In my career I have been able to assist with major museum exhibitions and helping manage over 6,000 artworks at once. However, the most rewarding experiences were finding up and coming artists and finding a home for their work.

Bryce: I love the way you word things, you’re very eloquent and insightful. I just learned something about art curation and I love it! That actually leads me to my next question.

Outside of the art world and industry, you’re also a talented author and writer. You’re currently working on a project called The Gentleman’s Guide to Slutty Sex: Studies in Intimacy, an ingeniously crafted memoir where you share deeply personal stories based on real life experiences.

You have visually archived some of those memories through NYCMeatball, a NSFW counterpart to the book that serves as an erotic documentary companion piece, and you also include some of your illustrations in the book too. I have a few questions about this project, but first, can you tell us more about it and how you initially came up with the idea?

Justin: The book began as a joke over 15 years ago as a list of memorable encounters with great men. As I experienced more and connected with men, I noticed a pattern of connection and conversations that seemed bizarre in the gay dating circuit: we did not have a platform or language to express what we truly wanted – intimacy.

I simultaneously began documenting these conversations while creating a code of ethics based on the philosophy that once you enter somebody’s body, you enter their story and I also discuss how we behave once that sexual partner has left the room.

Bryce: I’m definitely intrigued now, this is a deeply personal and intimate project. I am sure it’s been very cathartic for you to put your experiences onto paper and share some of the video footage from it too. What has been the hardest part of this creation process, and what has been the most rewarding part?

Justin: The hardest and most rewarding aspects are actually one in the same. Retracing past relationships to find meaning in what I learned from the men in my life became an exercise in what I owe in return.

I am in touch with most of the studies discussed, but I was compelled to reach out, make amends to others, extend gratitude, but most difficult was confronting my own faults and mistakes and reconciling all.

Bryce: I love that answer so much, I think the best art comes from the heart. I am tuned in for this book and excited for it to be published so I can pick up a copy for myself! Once it’s published, what are you hoping your readers take away from it during and after reading?

Justin: Ultimately, the book uses sex as an entry point and moves into a shared cultural philosophy about intimacy but argues that warmth and integration of one’s self allows us to understand ourselves better and in turn others.

I hope readers close the book with a sense of solidarity and use the principles as a way to find their own personal methods to feeling more cohesive and treating others with kindness and respect.

Bryce: Is there a place where we’d be able to get sneak peeks of the project before its release?

Justin: The book is only one expression of a much larger body of work. My illustration, memoir, archive, Patreon, website, OnlyFans, JustForFans, and filmed encounters now operate as parts of the same project rather than separate identities or businesses.

Some of the men in the Studies also appear in the drawings and films. The videos can function almost like moving versions of the Studies: the same encounter expressed through image, body, memory, writing, and eventually interpretation. Even the visual language and presentation across the platforms have increasingly begun to resemble the book.

Bryce: BRB, going to subscribe to your Patreon… Okay, now it’s time for my essential end of interview questions… Let’s do this quickfire style!

Favorite foods, dishes, and restaurants?

Justin: I am a native Italian New Yorker, so any homemade dishes. My favorite restaurant is Bamonte’s in Greenpoint, where my family has been dining since the 1920s.

Bryce: Obsessed. Favorite travel and vacation destinations?

Justin: Iceland, Glacier National Park, and Postiano.

Bryce: Need to go to those places ASAP. Special interest and hobbies?

Justin: I am a huge fan of Classic Film and Post-War culture from jazz to film noir.

Bryce: A man of taste. Where could we find you on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re not working?

Justin: Hoofing around Astoria in my loafers while I write and ogle hunky bros at the track 🙂

Bryce: Relatable. And with that, we’re at the end of the interview. That was fun! Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Justin. Is there anything you’d like to leave our readers with today?

Justin: Warmth.