He is grinning. Surrounded. Completely at peace.
The Pussycat Lover — places a man at the center of his own joy — standing tall on a real city street in Bogotá, Colombia, dressed in a vibrant green and yellow patterned jacket, cargo pants, and boots, with cats gathered around him like a congregation. One climbs his leg. One drapes itself across the top of his head like a crown. Nine more sit at his feet, calm and loyal, as if this is exactly where they belong.
And up in the window above — the alien. Watching again. Always watching.
This is what it looks like when a man refuses the script. Society has spent generations deciding what men are allowed to love. Dogs are strength. Cats are softness. And softness, according to the same tired rulebook, is weakness. But look at this man — the width of his smile, the ease in his shoulders, the way he stands in the middle of a living street in a foreign city, completely unbothered, completely himself. There is nothing weak in this image.
There is only a man in full possession of his joy. The cats do not make him less. They make him magnetic.
Jonathan D. Burns created this work by bringing his hand-drawn figure — built with the patient, deliberate craft of colored pencil — into a photograph he captured himself on the streets of Bogotá, Colombia. The real and the drawn exist together in the same frame, the same light, the same truth. That collision of mediums is intentional. It mirrors the collision happening in the image itself: the world as it is, and the man as he chooses to be within it.
The alien in the upstairs window is not a threat. It is a mirror. It reflects back every sideways glance, every whispered comment, every moment a man has been made to feel like an outsider for simply living honestly. But the man on the street does not look up at it. He is too busy living.
The Pussycat Lover — is a celebration. It is a challenge. It is an invitation for every man who has ever suppressed a part of himself because someone else decided it didn't fit — to come back to it. To stand in the middle of the street with it. To grin.
Normalize joy. Normalize authenticity. Normalize men being fully, completely, unapologetically human.
Medium: 30"H × 16"W — intimate and impactful, perfect for a bedroom, office, or gallery wall
He is grinning. Surrounded. Completely at peace.
The Pussycat Lover — places a man at the center of his own joy — standing tall on a real city street in Bogotá, Colombia, dressed in a vibrant green and yellow patterned jacket, cargo pants, and boots, with cats gathered around him like a congregation. One climbs his leg. One drapes itself across the top of his head like a crown. Nine more sit at his feet, calm and loyal, as if this is exactly where they belong.
And up in the window above — the alien. Watching again. Always watching.
This is what it looks like when a man refuses the script. Society has spent generations deciding what men are allowed to love. Dogs are strength. Cats are softness. And softness, according to the same tired rulebook, is weakness. But look at this man — the width of his smile, the ease in his shoulders, the way he stands in the middle of a living street in a foreign city, completely unbothered, completely himself. There is nothing weak in this image.
There is only a man in full possession of his joy. The cats do not make him less. They make him magnetic.
Jonathan D. Burns created this work by bringing his hand-drawn figure — built with the patient, deliberate craft of colored pencil — into a photograph he captured himself on the streets of Bogotá, Colombia. The real and the drawn exist together in the same frame, the same light, the same truth. That collision of mediums is intentional. It mirrors the collision happening in the image itself: the world as it is, and the man as he chooses to be within it.
The alien in the upstairs window is not a threat. It is a mirror. It reflects back every sideways glance, every whispered comment, every moment a man has been made to feel like an outsider for simply living honestly. But the man on the street does not look up at it. He is too busy living.
The Pussycat Lover — is a celebration. It is a challenge. It is an invitation for every man who has ever suppressed a part of himself because someone else decided it didn't fit — to come back to it. To stand in the middle of the street with it. To grin.
Normalize joy. Normalize authenticity. Normalize men being fully, completely, unapologetically human.
Medium: 30"H × 16"W — intimate and impactful, perfect for a bedroom, office, or gallery wall
