D*#@&#$% | Self Portrait
Habitfest x Clean Hands Army
Tulsa, Oklahoma | April 2025
15' × 20' | Aerosol on stucco
D#@*#$%^ was created during Habitfest, a mural festival organized by Clean Hands here in Tulsa.
This one was especially fun because it felt like creating at home.
I was surrounded by a lot of artist friends and familiar faces, with music playing, breakdancing, MCs, an indoor art gallery, food for the artists, and even a designated area where we could hang out and take a break between painting.
The whole environment was centered around art.
One thing I really appreciated about Habitfest was the creative freedom. There was no requirement to submit a finished sketch or mockup beforehand. The artists were selected, given their spaces, and trusted to create.
That gave me the opportunity to just flow.
For my wall, I decided to paint a self portrait.
At the time, I had been listening to a lot of metalcore and heavier music while I worked. I wanted some of that aggression and energy to come through in the mural.
The portrait shows me wearing a 3M respirator, similar to the one I use while painting with aerosol, screaming or raging toward the viewer.
It is exaggerated, loud, and a little chaotic.
Hence the name, D$#*@$#%.
There are also a few smaller details in the portrait that connect directly to where I was at during that period.
Green has never really been one of my favorite colors, yet somehow I constantly find myself with a lot of it in my work. So naturally, green ended up becoming a major part of this piece too.
I was also wearing a Patrón hat that I had been wearing pretty regularly around that time. The hat originally came from a goodie bag I received after working on the Patrón, Bacardi, and Grey Goose billboard project a few years earlier.
I liked having that small piece of my own history make its way into the portrait.
The wall itself is also in a pretty cool location. It sits along an entry point leading toward downtown Tulsa, so the portrait became this large, screaming figure greeting people as they come into the area.
For me, the mural was not meant to have an overly complicated message.
It was about energy.
It was about painting for fun, experimenting, listening to loud music, being around other artists, and creating something that felt like me at that moment.
Sometimes you spend so much time creating artwork for clients, businesses, organizations, and communities that getting an opportunity to create entirely for yourself feels different.
Habitfest gave me that space.
No complicated brief. No mockup.
Just a wall, some paint, and the freedom to make a little desmadre.
Shout out to Clean Hands for bringing artists together and continuing to create opportunities like this in Tulsa.
