The Strawberry

People often ask why I paint strawberries.

To be clear, I didn’t set out to.

But I do know where it started.

Years ago, I was painting Strawberry Shortcake, the cartoon character.

I began pairing the image with messages.

Cartoons provide moral lessons for children. When you become an adult, you still need reminders, so I paired a childhood classic with messages meant for grown-ups.

The first was:

Don’t Be a Dick.

I painted it on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood for everyone to see.

From there, I took her around the world with dozens of sayings like:

You Are the Victim of Your Own Rules.

Why Should My Strawberries Cost Less Than His Strawberries?

If Life Was Always Peachy, You’d Be Bored.

And my favorite:

Life’s Short, Cake First.

Over time, the character disappeared.

The strawberry remained.

While working in my studio, I’d staple large sheets of canvas directly to the wall and paint freely.

That’s when things became interesting.

I’d puncture the sides of spray paint cans and let the paint rush across the canvas.

I’d layer symbols the same way graffiti writers layer letters, building a larger visual language from smaller components.

I was developing my Wildstyle.

And what kept appearing was the strawberry.

Again.

And again.

And again.

At some point, the strawberry stopped feeling like a reference and started feeling like an icon.

I didn’t casually decide it would become a recurring part of my work.

It simply kept returning.

Painting after painting.

Idea after idea.

I’d set out to paint flowers.

And strawberries appeared.

Until eventually I stopped asking why it was there and started paying attention to what it was doing.

Over the years, a few people have suggested that what I’m doing with the strawberry is similar to what Andy Warhol did with the banana.

Not because the images are the same.

Because both operate as symbols.

Instantly recognizable.

Simple enough to understand.

Flexible enough to carry new meaning over time.

I’ve never been particularly interested in painting still life.

I’ve always been interested in painting ideas.

And somewhere along the way, the strawberry became a vessel for them.

I spent years studying how to take something static and make it feel alive.

How to create movement.

Create rhythm.

Make the eye travel.

Make the eye believe 2D is 3D.

I spent years painting images that disappeared.

But the movement remained.

Over time, those lessons stopped living behind a layer of paint.

They started appearing everywhere.

In lines.

In compositions.

In paintings.

Eventually, in my strawberries.

What people often see as a fruit, I often see as movement.

A curve.

A rhythm.

A gesture.

A shape capable of carrying far more meaning than its simple form suggests.

The best symbols operate this way.

The more you look at them, the more they become mirrors.

People see different things.

Nostalgia.

Joy.

Desire.

Love.

Abundance.

Memory.

Possibility.

I don’t want to tell viewers what they should see.

I’m more interested in what they already do.

Art becomes most interesting when it creates a conversation rather than an answer.

The strawberry has become that kind of conversation for me.

What began as a cartoon character became an image.

The image became a series.

The series became a body of work.

And now it’s part of my visual language.

I’m comfortable not having a definitive answer for why it remains.

All I know is that I thought I was painting a strawberry.

Perhaps the strawberry has other plans.