Your eye goes straight to the phone. It is electric turquoise, floating in mid-air on a stick, and it is the only colour in the whole picture.
Everything else is black spray-paint stencil on sun-bleached plaster. A flamingo, neck bent, taking its own photo. Behind it, a tourist cropped at the edge of the frame, striking a pose with real commitment. Nobody is photographing the tourist. Nobody ever was.
The bit that lands about four seconds in
Look at where the flamingo’s phone is aimed. Not at the tourist. The tourist is not in the shot, is not going to be in the shot, and is posing anyway. Luna cropped him deliberately so you work that out yourself instead of being told. That is the joke, and it is a mean one.
The hot colour does the rest. One flat turquoise on the screen, nothing else, because the screen is the only thing either of them cares about. Everything human is black and flat and the same. Luna cuts her stencils clean, sprays them on a wall that has cracks and a faded patch where something got painted over, and leaves exactly one colour to make the point. As one critic put it: “A perfect example of Luna Vasquez’s deadpan humor and distinct style.”
What happens once it is up
Kitchen wall, bar wall, the wall by the door where people wait for their coffee. It gets a snort, not a compliment. Then they get out their own phone to send it to a friend, which is either the point or extremely funny, depending on how generous you are feeling.
Getting it on the wall
The plaster texture and the soft overspray edges need a surface with some tooth, so this one is canvas — poly-cotton with a visible weave, stretched over solid wood an inch and a quarter deep. The image wraps the sides, so there is no white border and no frame to buy. It arrives stretched and ready to hang: one nail, two minutes. Matte, so a lamp or a window opposite gives you the picture back, not a glare.
Portrait. The 16 x 20 in (41 x 51 cm) is the one most people take, at $149 — a high quality print of a digital artwork, made to order, so nobody on your street has this one. There is a 12 x 16 in (30 x 41 cm) at $129 for a narrow bit of wall, and an 18 x 24 in (46 x 61 cm) at $229 if you want people to see it from the sofa. Free shipping in the continental US, up to ten business days to make, then it is on its way.
One honest thing
It is dry, not sweet. If you wanted a soft pink flamingo for a nursery, this is the wrong bird. If you like a joke that takes a second and then keeps going, take it home — or go through the rest of Luna’s Miami walls first, and follow her so you catch the next one before it moves.
