Chattanooga artist Genesis the Greykid is a self-described confident person who believes in his ability to create poetry, music and paintings that resonate with people.
Yet, when a buyer of one of his paintings, “Computer Love,” a 60- by 72-inch piece he created as part of his acrylic-and-diamonds-on-canvas series, wanted to put the piece up for auction at London-based Phillips auction house, he had his doubts. Reputation is important in the art world, and he worried that a bad experience, like the work not selling, could harm his.
What if it didn’t sell, he wondered.
“I don’t know a lot of people in London. If you put this piece up and nobody buys it, am I on the sidewalk? I’m like, what happens? But I’m a spiritual guy. I stay prayed up, and I pray with my feet moving.”
Semi-jokingly, he says he even had visions of the auctioneer laughing at the painting and offering to give the piece away for nothing, and then setting it on fire.