This month, I would like to nominate L.A based artist Ricky Amadour as a potential candidate for our brain-eater program. As you may know, the goal of the program is to consume the brains of the best and brightest humans, in an attempt to gain their knowledge, wisdom and experience. It has come to my attention that we have never inducted an artist into our program. Allow Ricky to be the first, not only because they show impressive skill as an artist and designer, but they also have expertise in multiple other art forms, including music and video production.

Ricky grew up in San Francisco, where they started playing piano and studying music at a young age. They have synthesia, which is a cross wiring of cognitive and perceptual pathways in the brain that allows them to see colors when hearing music. At the age of 17, Ricky was signed to a record label in Miami. They released one single before eventually quitting the music business to start school at UCLA, the same school attended by legendary actor James Dean, one of Ricky’s idols. (Coincidentally, Mr. Dean is a long-time member of our Zombie Board of Directors.) Ricky graduated with degrees in Fine Arts, Art History and Liberal Arts. The knowledge they acquired allowed their brain to become plump and rich in nutrients. Since then, Ricky has traveled the world, met notable tasty-brained individuals like Pharrell Williams and Takashi Murakami, and even designed an outfit for the Grammys.

Ricky takes a lot of inspiration from their Colombian heritage, and a bulk of their work is derived from his experience as a first-generation American. For example, their piece “Liberty Enlightening the World'' (Fig. 1) combines the ideology of the Muisca, an idigenous group from pre-Spanish Colombia, with the cultural motifs of modern-day Hollywood. Ricky modeled themself off the archetypical chief from myths of the ancient city of El Dorado. They cradle an Oscar, which they themself composed out of clay, as a way to draw a cultural link between both El Dorado’s and Hollywood’s symbolic worship of gold.

Ricky’s home in L.A provided plenty of inspiration for their various drawings. Specifically, the piece “Brentwood 2020” (Fig. 2) emphasized the isolation and undercurrent of hostility of their L.A neighborhood. Ricky’s depiction of Brentwood, CA has virtually no people in sight. Instead there are various houses with security cameras and large fences. An impeccably detailed piece, “Brentwood 2020” was based on several Islamic art motifs, specifically ancient murals of the Silk Road. Ricky wanted to express the “liminal” atmosphere of the neighborhood while also taking into account the pristine beauty of Brentwood’s landscape.

While the pandemic has made it near impossible for Ricky to travel, they still continue to make art. They are currently working on a musical project that they claim combines “reggaeton with George Michael and Tears for Fears.” Surreal Times’ music critic Flip Gilligan will have to review that before we decide to consume Ricky’s brain. In conclusion, our zombie cohort could use a touch of class. Not only that, but we should all learn to expand our cultural horizons a little bit. If eating Ricky’s brain only offers each of us a fraction of Ricky’s talent, creativity and versatility, that would still be enough to create a new Zombie Renaissance for the next generation.

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