This piece was centered in my first gallery at The Painter’s Room in Santa Ana, California because it is meant to stand out. It kind of encompasses everything I am trying to explain with @api_rats into one image. Based on Pink Floyd's Us and Them, this drawing is all about that barrier between rats and people that I try to expand. They are survivors, just like us. They stick together, cuddle, and, from what I see, can feel love. They're beautiful and just like us to the point that we actually use them to test drugs that we end up using ourselves. We trust them in a way. Which is funny given how they're regarded as disgusting by most.
In my world, maybe the New York rats run the subway? All their little feet pitter patter through their regular days. Maybe we build them like a little rat utopia under Manhattan. Let's be real, they already have one, this would just be more controlled/clean. Maybe there's a little rat bath house, a place where people can put food in or something, a place where all the little baby rats are born. Maybe they're only savages because we treat them as such. Instead of hiding behind the subway walls, maybe they're transparent and we can see what's actually going on right in front of our faces.
I know this will never happen but it's a brilliant idea. I know it. Someone take this work of art with them and please make it so.