Artists Canvassing for Space

WHEN David Graham, a 38-year-old painter, gave up a studio carved out of an old diner in Williamsburg in 1997, 6 years into a 10-year lease to spend a year in Montreal, he figured he would have little difficulty duplicating it when he returned a year later.

''There was still a lot of space available, so I didn't think it would be a big deal,'' he recalled ruefully the other day. ''But that was the year everything began to boom. When I got back, the place for which I was paying $600 a month was going for more than $2,000.''

So began a search of the sort that many artists undergo at one time or another in their careers. ''I looked in Red Hook, in Long Island City, in Greenpoint, in all the areas that were being touted as up and coming,'' he said, ''but I didn't find the space or rents comparable to what I was accustomed to.''

Almost by accident, he stumbled upon the South Bronx. ''I had driven by the area between the Willis Avenue and Third Avenue Bridges and noticed a cluster of warehouses on the river,'' he said. ''There had been an art scene there at one time, and there was a bit of romance to the idea of the Bronx, as well as a bit of apprehension.''

Mr. Graham has been cheerfully ensconced in the Bronx for three years, first in the American Bank Note Building in Hunts Point and now over a garage in Mott Haven.

Though it does not conjure up images of Montmartre, increasingly the South Bronx, once a symbol of urban blight, is a haven for painters, sculptors and other visual artists who find themselves shut out of SoHo, TriBeCa, Williamsburg and other entrenched art colonies by sharply rising prices and a dwindling inventory of space.