A visual art practice running alongside the film work — figurative portraiture, mixed media, and pop-cultural pastiche, made by hand and finished in collaboration with AI.
V3SS3LS is an ongoing series of figurative explorations of abstract post-human avatars, exploring technology, trans-humanism, post-mortality, and creatively engineered life forms. Each work is hand-drawn and hand-animated, then color graded in collaboration with AI — a natural human-machine partnership.
V3SS3L No.801
V3SS3L No.860
V3SS3L No.877Standalone paintings, drawings, and phygital pieces — pop-cultural pastiche, personal symbolism, and cultural commentary, 2023–2025.
"Embracing the Abyss" constructs a labyrinthine game board mapping the psychological terrain of Los Angeles, where institutional power, urban mythology, and personal transformation intersect.
"Statue of Limitations" presents a tangle of dramatic figures, legal symbols, and evidential elements that reference crime, justice, memory, and cultural entropy. The composition suggests a system breaking down in slow motion, where meaning is scattered but still insistently present.
"ETERNITY EMBRACE MMXXIV" presents a symbolic love portrait of the artist and his love. The background is rich with symbols, including stars, a horseshoe, a rose, toon hands, a watch, diamonds, and a small dog, each adding layers of personal symbolic meaning. The text "ETERNITY EMBRACE MMXXIV" at the top underscores a theme of timeless connection, while the number "33" serves as the artist's signature. The embrace between the two figures, a recollection of Klimt, symbolizes eternal love.
This series of three delves into the intricate web of global finance, corruption, privacy, and outlaw piracy, centered around the theme of Monero, a decentralized privacy coin known for its emphasis on anonymity. "Untitled (Monero No.1)" explores disparate finance themes, with vibrant clown faces representing Monero's cryptocurrency forks set against references to financial institutions, corruption, and the modern-day pirate figure John McAfee. "Untitled (Monero No.2)" focuses on evasion, privacy, and secrecy within geopolitics, depicting McAfee hiding out in a jungle among gold bars and money stashed in the greenery, alongside the phrase "Don't Ask NOYFB." The background lists countries without extradition treaties with the United States, reinforcing a narrative of escape and refuge. "Untitled (Monero No.3)" combines four film versions of the Joker — Nicholson, Ledger, Leto, and Phoenix — in a chaotic party scene at "Club ENRON," a nod to the energy company's financial scandal.
"Sham Pain" addresses the intersection of success and sacrifice — a play on "Champagne," hinting at hidden distress beneath a facade of opulence. Well-known superhero figures sip on Dom Pérignon, NOIR, Opus One, and Ace of Spades, their eyes streaming with tears even as their costumes and iconography have been altered, a metaphor for the compromises made in pursuit of a deal that reshapes identity. The vibrant, iconic colors of comic books are deconstructed into tattered, fragmented patches, mirroring that internal fragmentation.
Through a vivid collision of superhero iconography and corporate logos, "Ex Corp" deconstructs pop culture's once-inspiring figures — a Batman-esque figure transformed into a Carvana, and a Superman depicted in the humiliating throes of public indecency — confronting viewers with an uncomfortable fusion of childhood heroes and the causalities of late-term capitalism.
A Bitcoin Ordinal inscription series composed of 101 encrypted phrases as text-based numerical emoji cyphers, originally written or curated from a diverse range of sources including Shakespeare, Emerson, Nietzsche, biblical passages, song lyrics, film dialogue, self-improvement and philosophical treatises, random internet chatter, historical quotations, and AI-generated content. Its distinctiveness lies in blending cryptography and visual art as a form of neo-hieroglyphic transmission — each inscription is purely text-based code, presenting both a sequence of numbers and an assemblage of emojis. As a displayed artwork, a verse can take any number of appearances depending on the platform and display used to view it; the verse itself is the only permanent visual component. Available for purchase on Gamma.
A chaotic cinematic pastiche, rich with cultural allusions and dark humor, that takes the viewer into a San Francisco hellscape of fallen heroes and contemporary symbols. This work dismantles icons and reassembles them into a tableau that is both oblique critique and dark parody — an inverted Golden Gate Bridge, the Zodiac Killer's logo, and the Batman crest replaced with the Wu-Tang emblem all speak to a subversion of the familiar, while the macabre partnership of The Crow and a Freddy Krueger-inspired Batman suggests a deeper narrative of vigilante justice gone awry.
An American triptych of cultural narratives, each infused with the symbolism of the color in its title. "Red Sosa" features Alejandro Sosa, the suave aristocratic drug lord from "Scarface," exploring power and the ruinous influence of greed and violence. "White Sosa" introduces Chief Keef, also known as Sosa, flanked by Chicago Bull Minotaurs, reflecting the labyrinthine traps of fame, fortune, and the drug trade. "Blue Sosa" stars Chicago legend Sammy Sosa, examining the shifts in his identity and appearance, both in public perception and personally.
A speculative vision of golf set in futuristic landscapes. This series holds personal significance, inspired by the artist's father's close association with the late golfer Seve Ballesteros — an innovator and visionary who reshaped the sport. It honors his legacy while exploring how technology and societal change reconfigure tradition, with each piece a tribute to creative invention, venturing into imaginative realms that dream of the future.
A surreal, futurized reimagining of the infamous Natalie Wood true crime story, framed as an AI-generated theatrical series blending history and fiction into a branded spectacle sponsored by Sotheby's and Yves Saint Laurent. Set in a speculative future where artificial intelligence enables the casting of anyone — past, present, or imagined — into any theatrical production, it doubles as commentary on the evolving role of technology in art and entertainment, and the collision of creativity, commodification, and AI's unsettling potential to rewrite cultural legacies.
Directing, editing, and color work — commercial or narrative. Reach out below.