Liked: The Cost of Approval in a Hypervisual World

There’s something unsettling about how easily we perform for approval—how instinctive the “thumbs up” has become. Liked was built around that tension: the weight of being seen, the reflex to be affirmed, and the strangeness of needing it at all.

The image is stark and surreal. A glossy magenta tentacle—sinewy and otherworldly—grips a severed hand frozen in the iconic thumbs-up pose. It’s playful on the surface, but the message underneath is sharper. The gesture is detached, disembodied. Is the tentacle holding it up… or squeezing it out?

Surreal Pop for a Scrolling Culture

The work sits in the pocket between pop culture iconography and visual satire. The thumbs-up is familiar to the point of invisibility, but here it’s isolated—made strange. The magenta is loud but also a little synthetic, like a signal pulled from a corrupted feed.

This is where my art tends to live: in the overlap between retro familiarity, symbolic surrealism, and a wry critique of modern life. Liked doesn’t scream its meaning. It lets the image speak, then lingers a little longer than it should.

Built Like a Print, Delivered Digitally

Liked was designed using digital illustration tools but grounded in the language of screenprint—limited color palette, flat planes, clean separation of elements. That process gave me control over the texture and weight of each visual decision. Every curve of the tentacle, every shadow on the hand, is intentional.

Early in my professional career, I designed media that were popular in the day - compact discs, cassettes, books-on-tape and VHS. For CDs, I had to understand 4-color process printing for the inserts and spot color (screen) printing for the CDs themselves.

Liked is part of a larger experiment: blending traditional printmaking aesthetics with digital execution to create something that feels tactile even on screen—and even more so in print.

In the Wild

When I debuted this piece at recent events in the St. Louis art scene, people didn’t just glance—they reacted. Some laughed. Some looked uncomfortable. Most stared. It tapped into something quiet and weirdly recognizable.

That’s what I’m always aiming for: visual tension that cuts through the noise. Something that sticks with you after you scroll past it.

Available Now

Liked is available as a museum-quality digital print, pulled from the original illustration and printed with archival inks. It’s part of a limited run from my surreal pop collection and ships signed, ready to frame.

If you’ve ever questioned what you’re reaching for—or who’s handing it to you—this piece might feel uncomfortably familiar.

Hope you like it