The new pieces got him into grad school at Hunter, for which he moved from L.A. to New York in 2005, but shortly thereafter he abandoned oil paint entirely in favor of ink and watercolor. “I kept coming up against the history of oil painting," he says. "It has such a rich history that I think to incorporate irony and text would have made it difficult to succeed. Switching mediums and using paper — which relates to posters and has a more temporary feel — I think just read faster, even though it’s just as rich. I found that I was able to get the same sense of light on paper as I could in my paintings, which I felt was a success.”