Definitely. The last time we talked, you said your art was kind of angry. Like, there were a lot of teeth present. Have you seen it evolve since then? Is there an evolution throughout the book?
I think the book brought my work to a level that it was no longer just the teeth and stuff. I still have the teeth and eyes, but now I'm realizing that my physical body can actually interact with these ideas and forms that I'm creating. That's something I want to explore even more, hopefully in the form of a show. Like, what if I could just put myself into these worlds? That's an idea I was trying to expand on in the book. What that does is it makes it kind of comedic, like a cartoon, and not just dark. It took me a while to even understand that the art was dark. It was usually from people telling me like, 'Yo, what if you're like possessed or some shit.' But now I realize it's a language that's being built and I'm embracing that, cause I see it's a reflection of some parts of me.
Speaking of shows, didn't you have a gallery a while ago? I saw that the editor of The New York Times bought a piece. What was that all about?
So crazy! In June I went to a group show called 'Nightmare' at The New Image Art gallery in West Hollywood. They wanted these two big paintings that I had done to be in the show. But on the night of the show, I get there and they're like, 'Oh, we couldn't put your paintings up. But we put these drawings up that you made on the flight to LA.' I was furious. I thought, 'I finally get to show these paintings that I made in the midst of COVID.' And they just didn't show them. I went back to the hotel and just kind of cried about it – not really any tears, but like I was like, 'Wow, it's over.' But the morning of, we're walking around LA and the gallery owner calls me. She's like, 'Alex, guess what just happened? The chief editor of the New York Times – Dean Baquet – just bought three of your drawings.' And this is something that rarely happens. He comes in every now and then, and the last time he did was like three years ago for an artist who's really big right now – like crazy big. So I was like, 'Wait, what? The New York Times? What's he doing in LA?' But yeah, that was like the first moment for me where I'm like, 'Yo, I'm at a level now that's pretty dope. I gotta take this shit more serious.' And being able to tell that to my mom and dad, like, 'Yo, I finally did it!'