976 - SUCK Painting

In the mid 90's I lived on Saint Marks Place in New York City's east village. I remember walking home from school and seeing the streets were just littered with these phone sex flyers. Just glossy, porno-riffic mouths offering "sex" at a dollar a minute—as far as the eye could see. I really just wanted to recreate one of these, in large scale and oil— as a thing of beauty, as a nod to a now vanished New York. It's grit and glory. I want the viewer to see humor and the beauty. And I chose black and white because New York feels very black and white to me. Yellow was chosen because it's also a very New York color, the cabs, the old street signs were all this deep saturated yellow that I love.