 I think every word that I say is putting me into a little box. I don't think we need that. I want to make them question these rigid structures and break them. Everything you think about Jake, think the opposite. He's very smart, but he's quiet. You know, he makes very powerful works that are both subtle and visually powerful. So he's full of contradictions. He makes art directly through the web, which you wouldn't necessarily associate with kind of high art you'd see in a gallery, but he also does performances and installations at the best museums and galleries in the city, which is really cool. He sort of spans the like high art, low art divide. He almost writes off what he creates as just fun and playful and things people like because they're cool. The works themselves do speak deeper than that about the Internet and about how we present ourselves and also how we communicate in the digital world. The collectors don't care how many likes you get on Instagram. It may introduce people to him, but if the works aren't amazing, people won't respond to them. All the Internet notoriety won't matter. People are very critical that youth, the imagery of mass media capitalism, are not legitimate sources for art. But, you know, that's, of course, an argument that goes back many, many decades. In the age of the selfie, people take on a persona. I think the margins between the real Jake and what you see on the Internet are pretty narrow. So we're already getting a glimpse past just that painting. You know, we're trying to contextualize who this character is. It's not quite that he was a person who became famous on the Internet and then moved into the art world. I think he's simultaneously been conquering those worlds in a fairly separate way since the beginning of his career. It's not like he went to some nonsense art school that no one has ever heard of. He started saying that he's born on the Internet after he graduated from Cal Arts. And I feel like that has to do with knowing how to package himself even and kind of creating this animated character that is himself. I just try to have fun with everything. If I don't enjoy doing it, I don't want to do it. That's why I don't like this. We decided to do an interview with him, and he refused to do it in any other way but text message. So I asked him how old he was, and young Jake responded, um, young. Like, why are you actually... I think he just doesn't like being put on the spot and being asked to sort of summarize everything that he's working on. I think it just seems to make him uncomfortable. He's great at putting out visuals and videos and music and websites that appeal to a lot of people. That doesn't mean he necessarily wants to sit around explaining those things. Those are really different skills. Every time you think he's refusing to reveal something, that's actually revealing something. And that's kind of part of what his performance is. But I'm sure he would think, like, me looking into it this much is, like, very silly. He never really spoke that much. Like, he wasn't a loud person as a kid. He was very observant. He was constantly drawing and constantly creating. I remember when he was five years old, he had this comic that he would do, and it was just so, so funny. I wanted to be the voice of a cartoon because I wanted to, like, inhabit another body. It's still probably a goal of mine. He was already looking at creating a character, then watching that character go through scenes of the day. The point of art is to inspire people. You don't want to make people want to do stuff different. There's definitely a young generation. They might have not known about the art world, or they might not have thought the art world was an option for them. I don't want people to walk into my gallery and feel like they're not supposed to be there. I don't know, until I hung out with Jake, I didn't think that I was supposed to really be, like, other than street art. You know what I mean? I didn't think that I was supposed to understand art. I never thought I would really be into it or even trying to make it. So I had this idea to do, like, a space where every, like, aspect of the party is a sculpture. Like, the nice pristine gallery with the, like, disgusting ratchet party. There's, like, all these dichotomies going on. He's making work that relates to a demographic that is living on the internet, that's socializing on the internet. And yet it's drawn from a kind of urban sensibility, but it's very literary. It encompasses a lot, so he's kind of post everything. The coded works that he does are very sophisticated and they're, like, so engaging because as somebody who grows up with, like, the internet dominating all their conversations in their life, it really does speak to that. Yeah, the only thing that limits you is the idea that you can't do something. Jake is giving real people credit to believe in themselves the way he believes in himself, you know? If you get inspired by something, show people what inspires you. In any way, you don't have to be very good at drawing or anything to show people. Some people might really like it and agree with you. Only the future will tell how far he wants to stretch himself into what areas, but Jake is off to a very good start. It's definitely going to be hard to continue to always stay relevant, but I think that's why he's constantly, like, experimenting and trying new things. Even if he won't admit that.