“Now We Hunt Hippopotamus is a convergence of disparate influences, specifically including The Hippopotamus Hunt by Rubens (one of my favorite paintings by one of my favorite painters), Indian firecracker graphics (which I discovered traveling in India in 2005, a trip that completely exploded my color palette), and the David Lynch film Wild at Heart (the title of this piece comes from torrid moment when Isabella Rossellini stares down the barrel of her pistol pointed at the camera shouting ‘Now We Hunt Buffalo!’) I liked the idea of telling a humanity versus nature story in which the human element is represented by miniature severed heads, clearly overwhelmed by the behemoth brute force of the animals raging around the composition”
- Aaron Johnson
