Diablo Toro Tank Top

This is the seventh piece in the misfortune series, and it has an inscription on the lower left hand side. The whole Misfortune Collection was painted in 2020 when I was having a real hard time keeping positive. I had not had a girlfriend in 4 years, and was feeling angry at times at myself for having left Karen to pursue my career in music and art. It was before the Pandemic, and my brother had just been arrested and was looking at doing some really hard time in San Quentin. All my life I had done my best to keep track of him. He has had long periods of homelessness, and some really significant substance abuse issues. I had saved his Section 8 housing 2 times when he was about to be evicted, I went and negotiated with the property management companies and their lawyers to not give him an eviction on record if he just moved out. He would have lost his housing voucher if a legal eviction were on his record, but I wasn't able to prevent his eviction the third time. He had gotten a...

Benjamin Barnes, aka Bencasso Barnesquiat (a comical play on the names of famous artists) is a musician and artist based in San Francisco, CA. He received his Bachelor's and Master's of Music Degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with renowned teachers such as Sherry Kloss, Marlon Carlson, Izzy Tinkleman, Paul Hersh, Zaven Melikian, and Don Ehrlich. In addition to his classical training, Ben also studied electric violin, jazz performance, and composition with David Balakrishnan of the Turtle Island String Quartet. As a musician, Ben has played and recorded with a variety of artists including Les Claypool, Mr. Bungle, Dead Prez, The Coup, Carla Kihlstedt, Eric McFadden, George Clinton and P-Funk, Jason...