A new art event pits painters against each other in front of a live audience.

In hip-hop culture, a battle is a good thing. It’s a contest in which opponents display their skills – in rapping, DJing, breakdancing or beatboxing – to win the favor of a crowd. It’s fierce stuff that pushes people to up their game, raising the bar for the genre and culture.

In 2001, Sean Bono and Max Bode applied that idea to painting and created ArtBattle in New York City. Multiple artists paint an original work before a live crowd, with lively lighting, DJ music, and an emcee hyping the audience.

It’s been a hit, spreading to 60 cities across the globe. And now it comes to Monterey via co-organizers Stephanie Ornelas and Gerardo Ivan Zambrano.

Local artist Stitch Campos will emcee while costumed as Salvador Dali. Six local and regional painters will be at the ready in front of 18-by-24-inch canvases on easels. At the signal, they paint for 20 minutes. Liquid Abyss will spin music. The crowd votes for their favorite. Then round 2 begins with six more painters. The crowd votes again, and the two winners face off in the finals on 30-by-40-inch canvases. All the works will go up for auction.

“From Monterey, we have pareidolia abstractionist and fine artist Edward Lama Harper,” says Zambrano. “From East Salinas, Liz Ruvalcaba, a mixed media, community-based artist [who] paints the people and places of the Salinas Valley.”

They are coming from as far as Santa Cruz and Oakland, and Zambrano has some advice for all the artists.

“If I lost an ArtBattle (which I did last year in San Francisco) I would use it as motivation to compete in the next one.”

And that is the blueprint of hip-hop, sports, any competition – a feedback loop of trial, defeat and improvement.

ART BATTLE MONTEREY is 7-11pm Saturday, March 2, at Dali Expo, 5 Custom House Plaza, Monterey. $15/pre-sale; $20/door. 372-2608, artbattle.com