When I first met Gregory Siff, he struck me as just about the sweetest person you'd ever want to meet. That sentiment is pretty saccharine, but it's also literally true—unlike so many aspiring actors, Greg exuded an impossible to ignore sunny positivity. Though nothing in life is guaranteed, least of all success as an actor, Greg didn't act desperate and wasn't desperate to act—he had dedication to spare and he tried hard, but I never suspected he'd be devastated if he didn't become the next Tom Cruise.

He didn't become the next Tom Cruise (yet!), despite hosting a children's TV show called Z Games, parading his dutifully toned torso on MTV's Undressed and playing a dippy rapper alongside Justin Guarini in a film co-star Kelly Clarkson would probably love to erase from existence, 2003's From Justin to Kelly. (For the record, Greg cherishes the movie.)

Now, at nearly 29, the Brooklyn-born Body Beautiful might instead become the next Andy Warhol; Greg has turned to the art world to express himself, and it is that world which may wind up embracing him more heartily than Hollywood. Actually, it's within Hollywood's city limits where he's finding success—Greg's The Marshmallo Show, a one-night-only private viewing of 37 new works, was just hosted at The Standard Hotel on Sunset—and it is from Hollywood names that he's gleaned early support, with works by Siff in the collections of Lindsay Lohan, Robert Downey Dr. and Tricky. He's also been commissioned to conceive album covers and has been showing his work for over a year. A star is born? Not always—sometimes stars are created.

In case you're wondering, Greg's not gay. “James Dean said, 'I'm not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back,'” he teases, “but I am straight." Still, he belongs on Boy Culture because he has the awe and energy of an eternal boy and he's responsible for a good portion of all the culture in his adopted hometown of L.A. I'm only teasing Los Angeles as a New York loyalist, but Greg does find culture and art where none exists.

I was shocked when I realized Greg had become a fine artist. It seemed to be an out-of-left-field metamorphosis, and yet it was perfectly organic if I'd simply paid more attention to his enthusiasm for self-improvement and self-expression. “I knew I always loved art since first grade, but not till the past three years have I thought about it every morning. It is everywhere around you and when you come to realize it, just getting through the day can be like walking through Disney World.”

Rather than putting on airs (he did just reference Disney World) or taking classes or studying in Paris, Greg began to create art between castings with a characteristically modest—and resourceful—approach.

“I work with what I have,” he says. “Nothing.”

"Nothing" includes "...marshmallows, paper, paint receipts, food, photos, stamps, canvas, walls, poems, everything.” In the course of a single list of ingredients, Greg goes from "nothing" to "everything." In a flash, he goes further, coming full circle by saying his work is best described as, “Nothing. And fattening.”

The "fattening" part might refer to his obsession with a whimsical marshmallow theme, and with other sinful desserts. It makes sense that these items would haunt his sweet tooth and be reflected in his art considering he looks like he never allows himself to touch the stuff, or like he must have to work out extra hard whenever he does.

Greg is the son of an old-school bodybuilder, the kind who trained in a gym before a gym was the type of place where twinkies panted on stepping machines and where seeing and being seen trumps true physical exertion. It hasn't skipped a generation, and his hard work landed him a stint as an Abercrombie & Fitch model.

I see a connection between his work-outs and what he is artistically trying to work out. For proof, examine how Greg approaches the act of creation:

“When I make something, I don't think about what anyone will say. I just get the story that is buzzing inside out and that feels good for the moment. Then I am blank and a new mood comes and then I have to get rid of that one.”

His creativity is on a schedule, it is cyclical and it is regimented. And when he exercises the urge, it leads to something beautiful. “A good work of art comes from necessity,” he says, paraphrasing Rilke in a way that simultaneously echoes 'no pain, no gain.'

Which is not to say that his work is all smiles. The marshmallows (he prefers to spell them with no terminal W in his titlees) are manic (“Look at it again,” he says when pressed to explain them) and many of his other pieces express romantic optimism, but there is plenty of depressive to go around—mainly pieces obsessing over lost love with a kid-like simplicity that never fails to connect.

“Sometimes I want to be a smiley 'mallo,” Greg says. “Other times...I feel like love is just killing.” The thank-you e-mail he sent to attendees of The Marshmallo Show is a good example of Greg's offbeat approach to art and to life, and as good an example as any of his melding of smiles and frowns:

“and she kissed like a mouth full of mallos cheeks so chubby and plump and she danced lighter than nothing my heart twisted in some kind of clump i just want to start over again, she told me her hugs, tight as a clamp i know where the world is so bright, i said forget about bringing a lamp i pretended to know all the answers and confessed that i was just as blank i swear she stared right threw me in the glow of the marshmallo tank.”

Greg sold his favorite-ever piece at The Marshmallo Show. “Fromemory” was from his “junk” series. It was a representation of an ice cream bar. “You remember those pops from Good Humour you'd get from the ice cream man? For the life of me I couldn't find a photo of that ice cream bar. I shut my eyes and saw me ordering it as a kid on my block and I drew it. I think it looks exactly the way it did from the truck, half melted and heavenly. It sold. I was happy someone knew where I was coming from.”

It wasn't just a representation of an ice cream bar—it was a memory of what had once been his ultimate fantasy, back during childhood, when ultimate fantasies set you back less than a dollar and are yours for the asking.

Greg's family is incredibly supportive and has been ever since the days when he was eating sweets instead of immortalizing them. “But if you tell them you haven't been sleeping they say, 'Fuck this art shit!' They care about your health, you know?”

Back in the day, his family supported him when his friend Jamar was in a commercial for Honeycomb cereal (more sweets) with Andre the Giant. “I saw him partying with a wrestler on TV and I wanted in,” Greg remembers. “He sent me to his agent at 13 years old and I have been acting every day since.”

Every day. Probably there is a degree of acting in his art—there is more than a degree of performance in it, as evidenced by images of Greg marching in SoHo with a marshmallow head. Next, Greg hopes to combine his acting and his art with a production of a play he's written called—what else?—The Nothing Boys in New York and L.A. Details of the show are forthcoming, but Greg is not always. Asked to list the pros and cons of his talents, he reports, “Limits, I can not tell you. Strengths, I can not tell you.” He's also elusive about describing the materials he uses in his art, stating that it makes him nervous to confirm anything. He's like a famous baker refusing to cough up the recipe for his signature apple pie—and in fact, you might expect to find a Gregory Siff painting of pie out there somewhere.

As I've said, Greg is from New York but lives in L.A., and that tension informs his art and his life. “I came to L.A.. I loved it. I lived here. I hated it. I went home. I missed it. I came back. I remember why I loved it and I forgot that I hated it so I decided to stay and to not make love to it but just kinda date it 'cause my heart is in New York..” Still, he does not agree that L.A. is a horrible place, like so many East Coasters might argue.

He sums up L.A. in such a way that he could be summing up his own career, and his self-reinvention as an artist. “You make it what it is and you make yourself who you are.”

Nothing could be more important that figuring that out.