“Party Snake” depicts the eponymous creature, adorned with a cone-shaped party hat and a small pink tongue, partially coiled up in a three-quarter angle facing the viewer and set against a rich deep-green background. He is both a playful take on the lofty style of Renaissance-era portraiture, and the friendly modern descendant of the morally symbolic snake imagery of the Western art canon.

I aimed to keep a limited analogous color palette, making for an earthy and harmonious composition. There is a certain energy in the Naples-yellow brushstrokes of the snake’s body that give him a nice liveliness, as if we caught him here in a moment of movement, a celebratory little snake dance;)