Ja (2024)
Inkjet and Watercolor on Hanji Paper.
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Reflections on Bruno Caboclo:

When Bruno Caboclo was drafted an analyst described him as "two years away from being two years away". He was in the post-Giannis mold of prospects, an extremely raw gifted athlete who played in Brazilian leagues that could be described as amateur at best. For a while, I used this framework to think about myself, someone who came to art quite late compared to the others around me. Like when my work started getting the slightest bit of motion, I thought about time in that way frequently. But now, two years into this process, I realized that to think about that self who is supposedly only two years away and always be eluding me is an unhelpful framework, because artists don't develop like NBA players and the systems that artists operate within are not like the NBA.

But there are some similarities. When I look at the leaked photos of Ja Morant in the strip club, the floor completely covered in money, I think of the curse of privilege. Dame goes on podcasts and says the young guys don't love the game anymore, they just ended up there by virtue of God-given talent and have to find purpose in the hundreds of millions of dollars that will come their way. Ja pulled the blicky out on Live, then he did it again. When he's on the court, he flies like a ballerina. It's like breathing it's nothing it means nothing. All he's doing is Being. But what happens when you have to change your way of Being, when the conditions of the world necessitate change. I thought it was beautiful when Ty Lawson posted that Chinese women got cakes on the low and posted himself in the strip club and got kicked out of China. He got kicked off a team in Venezuela recently. Bro's art is pure dysfunction, he doesn't give a fuck, he stays being Him. Bruno never "made it" in the league. He's 27 now and playing in Germany. All that potential time never amounted to anything in terms of NBA results. I never watched him close enough to figure out "why". Giannis had that dog in him, and that dog never went away.

Getting Bread and Cooking are two different things.

And this shit is never a game, it's always practice. imma still get buckets tho