CINEPHILE
NEW PAINTINGS BY: ARIS CUMARA

ON VIEW AT SHAG
April 10 - June 13, 2026

ARTIST STATEMENT
I came to be a painter much later in the game than many artists working in the field. I painted my first full piece at 23 after getting a job as a muralist. I had no previous education in the visual arts, and the job gave me a crash course in medium, form, light, techniques, color, and many of the basics of creating art.

The idea to paint in DVDs came a few years into painting murals. Some work days, I would be tasked to sit out in the streets of NYC and watch heavy equipment to avoid any public tampering. At the same time, I was building a personal collection of DVDs. I simultaneously wanted to find a way to paint while I was out in the city while also recycling the many DVD cases that I was accruing. Eventually, I combined the two issues facing me into an easy, portable way to oil paint on the go.

A few months into this process, I decided to attempt one of these small paintings with a sex toy I had laying around. The colors were so vibrant, light hit it in such a unique way, and I had a lot of fun realizing a painting on a small canvas in such a quick timeframe.

The toys and the DVD cases that correspond to them are chosen to match energies, either in relation to the plot of the movie, the design, or the style. For instance, putting the pink rabbit vibrator in the case for Mean Girls was connected through the movie's early 2000s sex appeal and extended use of the color pink. In the case of the 2006 dragon-centered film Eragon, I, of course, painted a dragon-styled dildo. The cases help me pick what toys I will paint next by providing insight into design and energy. I do not layer these paintings and I do not go back to touch them up. I paint them once, let them dry, and move onto the next to capture the colors and emotions I feel at that particular time.

ARIS CUMARA | BIO
@ariscumara
Aris Cumara (they/them) is a producer, artist, muralist, writer, and the founder of Trans Mag. Their career in NYC has been spent working in the offices of Wicked on Broadway, backstage at Blue Man Group, as a traveling muralist, a local Trans community organizer, and urban NYC mushroom farmer. Their magazine, Trans Mag was created as a way to utilize their many skills in pursuit of a collective body of radical work to help document and archive Trans art from around the world. Their time as a muralist gave them a crash course in fine art painting that they have carried over to their personal practice.
ariscumara.myportfolio.com

SHAG EROTIC ART | PUSHING BOUNDARIES + TABOOS