EVERYTHING THAT GLITTERS AIN’T FISHSCALE

This piece is one of my favorites. It was inspired by the sight of two whole and filleted salmon, fresh and speckled, with heads and tails included, sitting on my countertop. I’d just returned from a trip to the fish market on Long Island with my aunts where I’d picked up the two large, gorgeous salmon that I was preparing to store in the freezer.

The title is derived from an MF DOOM lyric. (Never mind that the fish scale in the lyric refers to illicit drugs. We love a triple entendre here.) I also really enjoy how the contrast between the speckled fish scales, fine, sharply rendered bones and skin makes the whole image look like a scrawled graffiti tag, which is also in alignment with the DOOM reference. It almost kind of looks like it spells out the word DOOM, if you squint.

Because of the three overlapping colors (red flesh, yellow tray, and blue skin) and the resulting additional shades those layers create (green and a near-black violet and brown), this print looks so good in an infinite number of color ways, so I had to include just a couple more. It makes me think about printmaking processes, including risograph printing, and translucent screen printing inks that combine to form new shades. I’m looking forward to printing my works using some of these methods in the near future. I can see this one framed, really big, in someone’s white-tiled kitchen.