[from Whitewall]
WW: That picture with Toukie Smith—how did that come about?
AB: Ok, she was my girlfriend, right? And boy, she put on this little outfit and she looked so pretty, she looked like a flower!
WW: I thought of Josephine Baker.
AB: Yeah ok, the bananas. But that’s not what it reminded me of. I wanted to make this like a jungle or a wooded area and there’s a pretty flower there, right? So I remembered—oh what’s that painter’s name. Picasso loved him. You know at the Museum of Modern Art there’s that painting of the tiger and the gypsy lying down?
WW: Oh yeah. Rousseau.
AB: Rousseau! It reminded me of his paintings of a woman in the jungle. So I started to etch with a razor blade and spray-paint those lines as she stood tall like a flower. I do it quick. Like when you go to a live nude drawing class and you have to do the drawing in five minutes. I don’t think, I just do and feel.
AVI DAVIS 