Stay Curious urban expressionist abstract graffiti painting (2023)

Many of my urban expressionist works have a kaleidoscopic, ecstatic frenzy about them. They share the chaotic pulse of the cities I love, with some hard edges and an exhausting pace, but thrumming with all the intersecting stories of thousands or millions of lives, and the all those layers of history, all the toil and heartache of being alive and all the creativity and engineering and curiosities of culture that bring the world alive. This particular painting is an invocation of my core conviction about a full and authentic life. Stay Curious is my raison d’etre, and maybe yours, too. I want to know everything. I want to know everyone. I collect words in different fonts ripped from magazines, and endless ephemera from discarded books, thrift stores, the Internet, and city dumpsters. I choose them with a mix of intention and chance- something it is simply their palette that invites them to a particular canvas. I glue them down and paint over and around them. My treasure troves are a kind of archeology and anthropology. I sift through them, excavate them. They are all fragments of the big picture. Someone told me this painting made them think of rain. And it is rain, the late night downpour and its aftermath, and the way the neon ad signs from the squares and nightclubs dance and reflect on the sidewalks. The way the deep blues and purples blur and the base hiphop reverbations of the cars passing by and the joy of dancing in the wet summer streets. Edges painted black, wired on back, ready to hang.