I'm a huge fan of Leon's and his world feels constantly out of focus, but within it he's trying and yearning and striving and generally still aspirational. There is a knowledge and understanding that perhaps it is all for nothing, but fuck it I'm going to ball. Leon says a lot by pointing his lens at something ultra-specific then removing detail which I really like.

Chelsea I met in Mexico City and I liked a painting she made of her Sonora studio that was kind of surreal with large teddy bears hanging outside of it with cartoonish cars. A lot of her work is very sensual and deconstructs ideas of gender roles, sexual identity, and I simply like how she rearranges things for the viewer to consider. The work is also very bright and enjoyable to live with.

And Gregory is a friend who used to work at Baohaus. The language in his painting is very familiar as we are quite connected culturally and have a lot of similar interests. Leo Fitzpatrick represented him and I saw his Crate Paintings around 2021, then he had a show where he painted Dipset Lox Verzuz, which happened to be the night I met my wife, Natashia, and changed my life so I had to get that painting. Personally it signaled the end of an era for me when Dipset died and lost to The Lox and I started to take my life more seriously.

I was always interested in art but lived in Orlando, Florida where there simply wasn't much access to see anything up close. When I went to the University of Pittsburgh, I'd go to the Carnegie Museum on a monthly basis and that's where my interest really grew. From there whenever I was able to travel, I'd seek out exhibitions and in 2005 I caught a show featuring Zhang Huan's Family Tree photographs where he drew calligraphy on his own face. Probably because I grew up in a very Chinese home, but was obviously raised American that work made sense and landed with me in a way no other art had to that point. Until seeing Zhang Huan, I understood how other people could theoretically connect to art, but I was personally experiencing it by proxy since the references and feelings felt like substitutes for the ones in my own life.

I never thought I would be able to collect work, but in 2015 Aaron Bondaroff came to my crib to watch the Super Bowl and roasted me for having Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley posters up in my crib. He was like, "You too old to have fucking Charles Barkley posters on your wall, man."

Obviously he was trying to sell me the shit he was representing, but Aaron and the Morans became a gateway for me into actually collecting. They showed me a Luis Gispert piece called Black Boy George featuring gold chains on asphalt like a deranged dream deferred that really connected with me. That became the first piece I ever collected.

The emotion. There are some pieces I love, but don't necessarily fit the season of life I'm in so I'll rotate it out. I tend to hang the art that directs me to the emotional place I want to go. I'd say the art I keep in the home is emotionally aspirational.

There's one particular Soil painting, Frankie, Bean, Tom, Odessa, Marisa, Liz, Taline, Susan, Alison, Nina, Marcel, Audrey, Camilla, Ingrid, Kat, Aaron, Lucy, Irina, Matt, Mara, Laura, Victoria, Irina, Lucy, Zsela, Carley, Kristie, featuring names of friends as dots on what looks like a pink topography map that makes me want to be a better person or at least recognize the people who I appreciate in my life. 

Absolutely. My favorite artists in any medium generally began with an interest in another, failed, then found the place where their voice flourished. I think moving between worlds, changing the angle from which you approach things, and questioning your perspective are extremely important.

A lot of my friends that only work in one medium whether it be painting or writing or cooking get really caught up with what other people in that particular field are doing and it consumes them. I really think distance, boundaries, and respect between artists in any one medium is quite important. It's not a competition and we should abstain from "borrowing" too many ideas from others.

It's very easy to read trades, Instagram, whatever and hop on trends or remix other people's work, but we know how that ends. There really is a lack of integrity in art generally right now because everything has been commodified and the game is very easy to play if someone has no integrity. Do your own shit and be honest about it is how I feel.