Monster, 2011

I wanted to find more fine artists who embrace a cartoony style and discovered Jeff Soto, an American street/gallery artist with some stunningly rendered surreal paintings. The top and bottom works here show what I really like about his work, which is his crazy colors, detailed designs, and fluid, organic compositions. His bizarre, viscerally textured characters are also a plus for me, since I love figurative works with crazy personalities.

"Technically, graffiti taught me all kinds of things," Soto recalls. "I started painting walls around when I started on canvases so I was learning from both. I think it teaches you about scale and composition. You end up learning what colors look good together, stuff like that."

Untitled Chalk Drawing, 2011

Politics and environmentalism used to be a strong factor in Soto's work, but nowadays he tries to paint in a way that is more emotional than "preachy." He questions whether art is really important to the average person or whether its message can reach them, and mostly sees it as a way for humans to keep themselves active and creative.

The Last Voyage II, 2014

Many of Soto's works look like glorified doodles (his common smiley-face character originated from doodles he made when he was 10 years old) and embrace a stream-of-consciousness aesthetic. I would be very happy being able to balance technical control and creative freedom in the same way he does.