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Description
This is a second iteration of an early piece I made and sold in the first few years of my art career. It was one of my biggest sales at the time. The gallery I was a member of back then was involved in a local street festival. A couple happened upon us and fell in love with the original. They came back and bought it the next day. As we were packaging it up to go to its new home, my partner asked them what drew them to it. It's good to know these things. Good old fashioned analytics.

They told us they were foodies. They liked eating.

It's a little bit funny , if you read my subtext regarding what often happens at the end of a praying mantis mating session. It's also super interesting, as an artist, to consider just how different everyone's reaction to your work will be. What they see is a reflection of their experience. Not yours. They might relate to your message perfectly well, but then, they might relate to your work out of left field. That's up to them.

THIS version is much more detailed than the first one was. I used my friend's diner (The George Street Diner, for any of you who might live in Toronto) as the setting. The painting on the wall in the scene here is one of my paintings on the wall in the diner. The Goya homage in the corner is a nod to my friend who owns the diner, whose favourite historical artist is Goya. It's also, if you look very carefully, made up to look like Saturn Devouring his own Son is being filmed in the background - another nod to the fact that my friend's diner is a popular filming location in the city. In fact, the reference photo I used was from a Daniel Radcliffe film shot on location here. The still they used, that I also used, had a reflection of the boom mic operator under the light bulb. I kept it in.

Description
This is a second iteration of an early piece I made and sold in the first few years of my art career. It was one of my biggest sales at the time. The gallery I was a member of back then was involved in a local street festival. A couple happened upon us and fell in love with the original. They came back and bought it the next day. As we were packaging it up to go to its new home, my partner asked them what drew them to it. It's good to know these things. Good old fashioned analytics.

They told us they were foodies. They liked eating.

It's a little bit funny , if you read my subtext regarding what often happens at the end of a praying mantis mating session. It's also super interesting, as an artist, to consider just how different everyone's reaction to your work will be. What they see is a reflection of their experience. Not yours. They might relate to your message perfectly well, but then, they might relate to your work out of left field. That's up to them.

THIS version is much more detailed than the first one was. I used my friend's diner (The George Street Diner, for any of you who might live in Toronto) as the setting. The painting on the wall in the scene here is one of my paintings on the wall in the diner. The Goya homage in the corner is a nod to my friend who owns the diner, whose favourite historical artist is Goya. It's also, if you look very carefully, made up to look like Saturn Devouring his own Son is being filmed in the background - another nod to the fact that my friend's diner is a popular filming location in the city. In fact, the reference photo I used was from a Daniel Radcliffe film shot on location here. The still they used, that I also used, had a reflection of the boom mic operator under the light bulb. I kept it in.