I Don’t F With Pigs

Justice Dwight

Interview by L. Valena

August 13, 2022

Okay, let’s take it from the top. Please start by describing the prompt that you responded to.

It was a pig's head and he was wearing a birthday hat. It looked almost gory; that was my reaction right off the bat. I was actually cracking up because I grew up not eating pork and I don't eat pork at all, so I thought, “Of course it would be a pig!” [laughs] To think that I’d have to make something inspired by a pig was just really funny to me. I thought about other things that pigs can represent in general. You know, men can be piggish with their actions, police can be referred to as pigs. There are so many things! It was still a really cool piece of art. It just wasn't something I would have ever expected to draw inspiration from.

I think that’s fascinating. The prompt truly chooses the artist! The next person up just gets the next piece of art, so the fact that you grew up not eating pork… what are the odds??

I couldn't stop laughing!

So where did you go from there?

There is this Nicki Minaj song, Itty Bitty Piggy, where she states that she does not fuck with pigs. That alone was really funny to me because I tend to not fuck with pigs in a variety of ways. It doesn't matter how they're brought to me. I do not mess with them in any sense of the word. I took it very literally and I thought back to the beginning of my art journey. Eight years ago, I used to do a lot of pop art. I felt I wanted to be more representative with the works and represent more of my culture, because I didn't see a lot of that in pop art at the time. I’m not saying it didn't exist; I just hadn’t found it yet. That's what really inspired me to start making my pop artworks, which I later stopped calling pop art and started calling afro pop art. I thought, “Let's go back to the beginning. Let's do something that you really resonate with and make this a representation of you fully.” So that's what I thought of.

That's awesome. I love that, afro pop art. I think that's really hot and I think this piece is really hot. This person’s talking on the phone, right? One thing I’m curious about is if you have a narrative of what this conversation is about.

This is going to sound so silly, but when I was talking on the phone with my best friend about this whole assignment, we immediately started singing the Nicki Minaj song. I couldn't really grasp what else would make the most sense to me. I told him my idea and asked if he thought it was silly and he said, “No, I think it's perfect.” So that's actually how it went. It's someone talking to their best friend. In the sense of the actual making of it, it's a song, but then when I looked at it and thought deeper about it, it could be several other things.

In the image that you got, obviously there’s gore. There's a lot of visceral stuff going on in it, but in general, whenever you see pig imagery, do you have that same reaction?

Honestly, yes. I remember growing up thinking they were the worst things ever because my parents would tell me, “Don’t eat pork!” And when you're young, you don't really understand the whys about things. You just think, okay, don't eat it. Then when I saw them, I assumed they must be awful creatures.

I'm a person who really loves pop culture, and New York from The Flavor of Love was a big character on TV at the time when I was really immersed in it. I remember her having a show where she would do odd jobs. I think she had to work as a pig inseminator once. She was in the pen with the pigs, and I remember seeing how nasty the pigs were. It was just really gross and they walk around in this all day. This is why you don't eat pigs! I was watching another show, America's Next Top Model, and they served a girl pigs’ feet. She said, “But they walk around in their poop all day! Who wants to eat their feet?” You know, moments like that. When I think of pigs, I think of reality TV in a weird sense. I think of the memories I have from watching some of my favorite shows. But then you think of the cute cartoon pigs, Peppa Pig and things like that. And there's this doll shop here in Richmond, VA, and one of the owners has a pet pig. It almost looks like a little toy dog. But what’s the difference between that pig and the head of the pig I saw? One was really cutesy, and the other one made you feel a little uncomfortable.

I think it's great that you made a piece of art about your reaction to the prompt, rather than trying to make a piece about a pig. It sounds like that would have been really counterproductive for you. I know that pop art is a big thing for you. Is that something that you still work with?

It is something that I still pick up and put down. Somewhere along the lines, I think people started to really know me for my pop art, to the point where I wanted to do other things. But even when I make other forms of portraiture, it has an afro pop art aesthetic to it, which I think I've come to accept as my artistic aesthetic. It was a thing that I did that got really popular and it was exciting, and then I wanted to prove that I was something that I wasn't, and in reality it turned into, “This is who you are. You should enjoy that. Embrace it.”

Tell me about your process itself. Do you start with a sketch? How do you work?

It depends on what I'm trying to do. For example, most of my pieces start off with a drawing first. I don’t feel like I’m the greatest at drawing, but I fix all my mistakes with paint. I figure out how I want to paint it as I go. Sometimes I want to use shapes and patterns. Sometimes I want to use fabric for this thing or glitter for that thing. And now I'm getting into different things, like resin pour art, trying to figure out how I can add that as another mixed media element. But when it came to making this piece, I definitely drew her out first. I take all my inspiration from pop art that already exists and try to flip it, because I kind of see it as an art brut kind of vibe. I'm gonna take this thing that already means this thing to one group of people and make it mean something else to either the same group or a different group of people.

I love that so much of the imagery in pop art seems to come from comics.

Oh I love comic books. My dad was an artist and I learned how to draw and paint from him initially. Growing up, he would take us to the comic book store on the weekends and get inspiration from some of the characters and the poses that they were doing. Being named Justice, I was so drawn to the Justice League. I was six years old and I thought, “This is about me” or “This is for me.” It wasn't, but that's how I got into.

Yes, it was! Yes, it was!

Yeah, when the world revolved around me, I was like, “Oh my God, somebody made a book just for me!” I remember when I was in elementary school, someone said they watched the Justice League cartoon, and I was like, “You're watching that?? You shouldn't be watching MY show!” [both laugh]

That's so cool that your dad is an artist and that you learned from him. What was that like?

Oh my gosh, it was the best. His work was always more on hyper realistic side. I could never achieve his level of realism. He's self-taught; he just read a lot of books on painting and then implemented those techniques. He was really, really good at it. He doesn't paint anymore. Now it’s more of a hobby he'll do on the side if he feels up to it. I used to help him mix his colors. He's colorblind, so I would help him tell the difference between certain things. Eventually, he would give me little prompts, or he would give me a canvas and I would want to impress him with something. He's my favorite, favorite artist of all time.

How amazing to have your favorite artist be your actual parent! That's incredible.

He used to go to art fairs with his prints and I remember going to the store with him to get his prints made. He was very strict or not selling his original work. He would actually give it away to someone before he would sell it. That was always weird to me, but now being an artist I understand him a lot more.

Yeah, I think the business side of art is so complicated. That almost spiritual connection that we have with our work can feel confusing when money comes into the picture. Is there anything else we haven’t touched on that you’d like to talk about?

I want to give a shout-out to my mom. She collects dolls, and in the early 2000s, Bratz dolls were a big thing. She doesn’t claim to be an artist herself, but she would style them and set up different homes for them on shelves. I always liked how she would put their clothes together from patterns and different styles and colors. I feel like I always draw inspiration, particularly for my color palettes, from the way she would style her dolls. And I don't know if she's put that together yet or if anyone has. I just remember eating dinner, eating breakfast, and there's two big doll houses with Bratz all through them. How could you not be inspired by that?

I love that idea of doll fashion. I think it's something people don't talk about enough.

It's so good! And I honestly take that into my own wardrobe today! [laughs] I feel like a cartoon. People say, “You always wear jumpsuits or overalls,” and I say, “Well, have you ever seen SpongeBob? He wears the same thing every day!” This is just so easy. You can put it on and then you're just in it, your dressed.

Do you have any advice for another artist approaching this project for the first time?

Be less literal than me. [laughs] No, be as literal as you want. But really look at the piece in front of you. Really think about it and see how it makes you feel, and work from it based on that. It's not that bad. As I told my friend, this art is good because all art is good. No art is really considered bad to me. But it might not be my cup of tea.

Call Number: Y84VA | Y86VA.dwiI

Justice Dwight Is a self-taught visual artist who was born in Plainfield New Jersey but raised in Richmond Virginia. Besides being inspired by his family, he looks up to Black artists like Barkley Hendricks, Bisa Butler, and Derrick Adams. While also being in group shows, he's had the pleasure of sharing his art online which has given me the opportunity to create work for the University of Maryland and celebrities such as Issa Rae, Big Freedia, and Azealia Banks.