Good Friends, 2022

oil on honeycomb aluminum, 2022
50”x 50” (127cm x 127cm)

Good Friends is one of the newest additions to the Stuffed Animal Piles, and though its size is rather modest compared to some of the larger pieces in the series, to me it is one of the most impactful and special. In its format and composition, it is reminiscent of the very first Pile I painted in 2016 and if you compare the two, you can see just how much the paintings – and I as an artist – changed and evolved through the years.

Every part of Good Friends, from the characters and their arrangement to the specific color palette, was carefully curated and adjusted to make the painting as rich and lively as possible. Each stuffed animal was painted with a unique tempo and energy so that no texture ever repeats twice. The final result has a rich tactile variety, ranging from the bustling shag-like fur of the large Teddy Bear Brown bear on the center right to the smooth velvety sheen of the crimson “Hug Me!” heart at the center bottom.

My paintings often have interesting visual details that are essentially hidden in plain sight, and the longer a viewer spends in front of the canvas, the more details they will notice and discover. One of such “hidden” moments in Good Friends is the placement on my signature, which runs through the pastel fur of the llama at the top right. Another one is at the center of the painting where the composition converges on my current favorite color duet: lime green and fuchsia pink. A green frog plushie is tucked in right next to Smiles, a special teddy bear character of my own creation and a personal symbol of myself and my art career :)