King on Velvet
Anonymous
Found 12/2013, Savers (Lakeline Mall)

The lion is one of nature’s most powerful animals. In medieval lore, because of its majestic mane and blunt muzzle the lion was seen as the most humanlike and therefore noble of the carnivores: thus, “king of the beasts.” It takes great talent to render one as awkward, confused, perhaps quietly inquiring as to the location of the restroom. This is the gift of the black velvet artist: to take the truly great, and tame it.

The anonymous artist of King on Velvet seems to have trained on the great Cubist artists of France, particularly Jean Metzinger. The cubist sought to simultaneously capture all aspects of a moment: nude pausing, nude descending. View from the east, view from the west, in shadow, in full light. Or in the case of King on Velvet, both the face and the butt.