Manuel Matias was born in Puerto Rico and raised on New York City’s Lower East Side in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when drug addiction and violence made daily life a struggle. For Matias, art provided solace from the chaos that swirled around him. He remembers drawing on the walls of his apartment while waiting for his parents to come home and he remembers the attention of friends and neighbors who recognized his talent. Besides filling countless sketchbooks with graffiti designs, he also designed flyers for a neighbor’s hair-braiding business....