I am a simple guy. Post money, you might even say. My driving motivator is not to be rich, nor even for my peers to perceive me as rich. Give me a hot beach, a good book, and some loud ass flower, and I’ll be content for the rest of my life. But, while I was sleeping on a couch a mile high two weeks back, it was our patron saint of funding, Madison Jesseka, kicked back on Venice Beach, lounging and bouging it up with her sister, sparking conversations up over greens with a local artist.

The surrealist paintings of Daniel Castro, or @dcastroarts, are very much my vibe. Castro, a native Brazilian, appears to be on the same metaphysical tip as our own brand, an idea referenced repetitively in his use of eyes and scenery, which seems to reflect the all-encompassing nature of our universe and the abstract ways in which everything is actually composed of the same core building blocks. In his own words, the work he’s been producing since 2010 consists of 7 major elements: “Modernity, Contemporaneity, Innocence, Simplicity, Spirituality, Happiness, and Poetry”. Sounds like exactly the type of guy who’d burn one down on Venice Beach with my fiancée. But. Like I said. My vibe. 

Now, while I find the message of his art uplifting and fairly well executed from an elemental checklist standpoint, it’s pieces like this bloody windstorm gunning for my beloved palm trees, pictured above, that steal my heart. I’m not entirely sure what the floating targets in the sky symbolize, but the energy to me feels both ominous and serene. It invokes my own inescapable desire to escape to a better place — the digital dreamscapes of the Metaverse, the sweet release of some Bubba Kush, or the beach to read and listen to the waves crash upon its shores.

Peep Daniel’s website if you are looking to purchase prints, at a reasonably priced $30. It sure beats the gas fees — at the pump or on the OpenSeas.