“Rap Caviar”, 2021, mixed media on canvas, 36 in. x 30 in.

The piece came from cutting out and collaging images from an old Sotheby’s catalog and combining existing images to make a new story. Art can be very internal, as in artists start to make art for other artists and people who speak art, but for me, it is fun to fuck up that boring conversation.

So I took these ingredients and took the title from a lame Spotify playlist full of self promoting hip hop, and added some Japanese characters. The gorilla becomes a stand in for God, who usually becomes a stand in for whoever was the authority figure of ones youth. Then one spends ones life performing for the version of God they have invented. So the little Japanese men are doing all kinds of moves to show Gorilla God how amazing they are but because Gorilla God is a figment of their imagination, he just watches without response.

“Letgo” says the text that snakes around from Gorilla God’s mouth to the vase of flowers. “Stop trying so hard and relax and enjoy” says God as we humans scurry around trying hard to impress anything or anyone we can. We’re strange busy creatures we are…..

Watching out of the window towards the bottom of the piece on his knees in bed is the painter, maybe me, observing it all and recording it as a way of poking it and asking questions about this behavior.

This piece lives in a private collection in Long Beach CA.