Tim Biskup is an artist who focuses mainly on abstract and figurative painting, but he extends his art into the realms of sculpture, printmaking and music. His art has been shown in galleries around the world, including at the MOCA, and he has amassed nearly 300,000 Instagram followers. His work has been published in the LA Times Magazine, The Huffington Post and Vice Magazine.
February 2017, Tim opened a small creative space and art gallery called Face Guts located at 4136 Verdugo Rd. According to the website, Face Guts is a venue for whatever Tim feels like doing. In June 2025, he opened Home Guts, which is an outcropping of Face Guts focused on home decor. Home Guts is located next to Face Guts on Verdugo Road.
Tim said the idea for Home Guts started with a pitch he created for a gallery.
“10 years ago, I wanted to do a show inside of a gallery that looked like an apartment with a chair, a table, a pair of pants, shoes, a lamp and paintings,” Tim said. “I wanted to push forward a more complete aesthetic. Everything in there would be available [for purchase] and made by me. I wanted to say this is how you decorate your apartment if you want my paintings to look good.”
Mike Biskup, a Washington-based watercolor artist and Tim’s younger brother, said Tim’s vision for Home Guts stems from his excellent ability to identify and curate what looks good.
“I have always been interested in the way Tim collects and the way he views objects,” Mike said. “It was happening at Face Guts because he was curating art and now he is gonna curate what is in people’s homes.”
Mike said Tim’s interest in collecting objects and turning them into home decor dates back to their childhood.
“When we were young kids, we lived in Malibu and we would walk on the beach and he would find things and put them up around the house,” Mike said. “You could see it in his mind: ‘What is this? What could it be?’ He was always collecting all sorts of stuff — Pippi Longstocking style.”
Tim said before he opened Face Guts, he was traveling the world and focusing on getting galleries to accept his art. In 2016, he became frustrated with the people he was doing an exhibit with and decided it was time for a change of pace.
“I didn’t want to call it a gallery because then it had to be a gallery,” Tim said. “I wanted the freedom to be able to do whatever. I would have bands play there, sometimes I would just sit on the floor and play dice with my friends.”
According to Tim, Face Guts gave him a lot of freedom, which he appreciated. However, he said it took the pandemic for him to truly reprioritize his life.
“COVID happened and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do any of the shows I had planned,” Tim said. “I felt this intense relief and I realized that I had totally stressed myself out by trying to do too much.”
According to Tim, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed him to heal and think deeply about himself and his relationships.
“I did a lot of emotional processing,” Tim said. “I thought through my responsibility for other people’s misery, and a lot of childhood stuff came up. I worked through a lot, and I came out the other side feeling more capable of being part of a community.”
Stefan Biskup, Tim’s older brother and a computer graphics artist, said it was Tim’s boldness that paved the way for the other brothers.
“Growing up, my parents told us doing art was a good way to starve to death,” Stefan said. “They didn’t say that because they didn’t like art; they said it because they were worried about us. He was kind of the black sheep of the family and had a laissez–faire attitude. It would freak my mom out, but he would always pull things off.”
Mike said Tim and Stefan did not always get along. According to Mike, the thing that healed their relationship and healed all of the brothers’ relationships with their parents was the ‘B-Team’ — monthly two-hour chats with Mike, Tim, Stefan and their dad.
“We didn’t really know our dad at the start of the B-Team,” Mike said. “Slowly but surely, little by little, he became more comfortable talking in ways we never got to when we were kids. At the last meeting we had, after having really difficult conversations, I was just blown away. Our later-life friendship has done so much. He’s 89 and still expanding his ability to talk to his own children.”
According to Tim, his parents are both artists. Their dad was a draftsman and architect and their mom is a talented drawer. Despite having told their kids that artistry was not a viable career path, the Biskup brothers said it was the freedom, stability and support their parents have continuously given them that allowed them each to develop into successful artists.
“By helping me, my parents have allowed me to help other people,” Mike said. “The most powerful thing we’ve done is healed our divides and shared that with other people who have healed their divides.”
Contact Bennett Michaels at bmichaels@oxy.edu
