About the art: 02Aug26

I chose to dive into spray paint completely blind. I was inspired by David Choe to create. He talked about moving his whole body, and how spray paint saved his life. It’s something I’ve always admired but never made myself. So I created some expressive pieces, using only emotion to guide the initial creations. 

As I continued to make these, I changed my set up each time. After several toppled tables, mid-painting, I’ve refined my trash can set up. The more simple approach of a makeshift table, cheap wood center on top of a trash bin, it’s easy, mobile, and stable enough. 

Eventually, I took to YouTube, after avoiding it for a while. I wanted to just throw paint without the influence of anyone else for a bit. But when I got that out, I found some great videos about spray paint techniques. You just don’t want to get trapped watching videos endlessly. But the one I watched helped a lot. I’ve made my own changes to the recipe, and will continue to experiment and explore. I happen to have way too much tin foil lying around, so that ends up making fantastic texturing and stenciling on the fly. 

Embrace the mistakes. I took this idea to heart and had a blast. I think the splatter pieces are expressive texture. But they exist as a full embrace of constant mistakes. Though it’s not quite accurate to say each inch of paint is a mistake, when that was the intent. Forget realism or conveying a place or thing. 

There is freedom in the creation. Start the painting by taking a random can and just putting paint down. It’s not in service to anybody. There’s no shortcoming, or not enough. It’s done when I feel like it’s done. If I don’t like it, just paint over the old and start again. 

With spray paint, I’m discovering its special qualities. Each medium has its own personality. Spray paint can be thrown onto virtually any surface, transforming it. 

I’m reminded of my trip to Berlin, Germany. I visited the famous wall. To this day, artists are constantly layering new paint onto it. The wall remains as a symbol of oppression, and people continually layer human expression on top of it. The spirit and soul of spray paint is rebellion, liberation, and freedom.