After painting several portraits against solid, black backgrounds, I found myself hooked on the boldness it allowed me. I wanted to continue exploring animals, which have come to be one of my favorite and most beloved subject matters, but wanted to push the ways in which I depicted them. Drawing a great deal of inspiration from my living situation of the time—above an oddities shop in Richmond, Virginia called Rest In Pieces—I was drawn to the idea of skulls and skeletons. Working with a similar-style as my series Animal Farm, I embraced the use of color in depicting both skeletons and skulls. Though the objects are lifeless in their physicality, this use of color seemed to infuse them with a new, different kind of life.