Well, this is quintessential Vlad. Amazing combinations of color and texture, mastery of technique, whimsical theme and a cartoonish element somewhere in the composition. Sometimes the cartoonish aspect is well-integrated (as in "Punctuation") and sometimes it seems willfully incongruous or ironic, like graffiti slapped on top of a masterpiece. Like many here, I'm in love with Vlad's art. But living with the cartoon octopus is a struggle. At the same time, we must realize the composition would be empty, dark and lonely without it. At the risk of offending genius, I try to imagine our pianist without dark stripes and the bulging cartoon eyes replaced by classic Ray-Ban shades with burnt orange lenses. Would that work? Would "Pianist" still be recognizable around the world as a Vlad? If I could answer those questions, I might be creating popular works of art myself instead of slaving 9 to 5 [LOL]!

I absolutely love this. When I was a little girl into my mid teens, my family and I used to go for long weekends about five hours or away from our home. We used to leave right after my Father would get home from work on Thursday or Friday. This picture reminds me of when we drove to Montreal from New Jersey. Part of our trip was through rural and forest areas until we would reach the highway in New York State (we lived on the border of NY and NJ) that would take us all of the way to the Canadian border. Thank you so much for this wonderful memory.