It is a high season for Piccle P. People with no prior special interest in street art keep bringing him up on their stories and reels, asking about the work, and pointing out Piccles while driving—though they don’t know his name. “The heart guy,” they call him—because he paints hearts. The first bartender I talk to after a morning out with a photographer asks where I’ve been: “Looking for graffiti by Piccle P—you know, the heart guy?” “Oh, I love those!” he replies, though we’re several neighborhoods away from the work.
How does P stand out so much amid all the architecture, chaos and signage—not to mention the other graffiti? There is that balance of the striking arms and legs, often rollered-on, sometimes holding a dagger, against the needling, seeking, avid-eyed faces, which sometimes cry blood. But there are a lot of loud tags and talented painters on the streets. More than anything, I think, it is that the Piccle P hearts are so obviously selling nothing. Nearly everything we see outside is, on some level, a commercial appeal or is at least trying to make a point, with images all saying: “Get your car washed,” “Your favorite genius has an album out,” “Why not vote this way?” “Look, a great place to eat sushi.” Even most street art wants to advertise how good the artist is at drawing letters or robots after climbing up to some rarefied spot.
The Piccle P hearts immediately seem to not be about their artist or the everyday inscrutability of urban vandalism, but about us, like a classic soul song, only nastier: “Oh no, what has my heart gone and done today?” These hearts in black, white and pink: They creep, they grin, grimace and weep, they stab one another and lie in state, with great X’s on their eyes. If there is anyone who has never felt betrayed by their own heart, they are boring and I don’t want to talk to them.
Unlike a more subtly narrative matchstick-man merchant like, say, Laylah Ali, it helps Piccle P’s project that his creatures are public: they’d be less effective if they couldn’t catch you by surprise or broadcast their drama to everyone driving by. Piccle P’s star may be ascending because we spend so much of our time in public talking about what we do not want or how noble and normal what we do want is. Yet everyone in LA knows that we’re only putting up with all the crimes and traffic because of desires we would prefer not to discuss in mixed company. There are no entirely noble reasons to be here. When, across three or four lanes, we spot Piccle P putting the awkward and unsubtle heart right out there on display, spouting evil poetry, sprouting awkward limbs, feet all schematic and hands ham-fisted, we feel seen.
