Dennis RomeroAn L.A. artist who has taken to portraying banks afire via oil paintings has been visited not once, but twice, by the LAPD, who asked him, according to the Los Angeles Times, if he “hates” banks and plans to act out his masterwork.
Well, maybe a interest by the boys and girls in blue is a Midas touch, because now the banks-ablaze paintings of Alex Schaefer, a 41-year-old from Eagle Rock, are going for big bucks on eBay.
In fact …
… one of them is seeing bids of more than $10,000 on the auction site: This one (and you gotta love a title like “Chase Burning”):
'Chase Burning.'; Credit: Alex Schaeffer via eBay
Another such painting, “Bank of America,” was going for $2,750 last night.
L.A. Taco notes the irony that “only people who can afford to buy his work are the same people who looted the financial system in the first place- bankers.”
Schaeffer, by the way, told the Times that his works were inspired by the economic apocalypse that occurred when banks invested in crap real estate loans — by institutions “bringing the system down. Some might say that the banks are the terrorists.”
This here blog piece was inspired by L.A. Taco.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.