US Navy veteran Randy Morales fuses nostalgia and graphic expressionism within his street-pop artworks. The choice of subjects within his artworks is strongly influenced by his experience growing up in the 90s. Carrying on the theme of feeling like an outsider much of his life, Morales focuses on characters that he would consider less “obvious” to the masses but more emotionally evocative to those who recognize them.

Morales has been a creative all his life although he has not always had the opportunities to show his expressive range. He says, “Being a young African American and Puerto Rican male in Washington state already being different from all the other kids I chose to hide my creative side and just go forward with life day by day. I ended up in the military since I had no other plans in life and found myself doing creative things during my free time just to pass time.”

After completing his military service and his degree from FIDM, Morales began as a fashion designer working for major fashion brands. It wasn’t until his TV broke that he had an artistic revelation, “TVs are meant to have pictures and even though my TV was broken instead of just throwing it away, why not paint on it.” This sparked his venture into creating visual artworks from recycled materials and eventually creating original paintings on canvas.