'Taking the Piss', by Leon Aarts - acrylics on board, 2012, for sale.

Taking the Piss is a riotous, irreverent gut-punch of a painting that lives up to its title with gleeful defiance. This 400mm × 500mm acrylic on board from your 2012 surge is pure expressionist mischief, a middle finger to decorum wrapped in a carnival of color and form. Where Canal Ride (also 2012) floated in nocturnal introspection, this one detonates with daytime anarchy, as if the canal boat crashed into a jazz bar and everyone started laughing at the wreckage.

The composition is a glorious pile-up: a vertical stack of distorted figures, instruments, and architectural fragments colliding in a vertical shaft of chaos. At the base, a leering, pink-faced mask—half skull, half drunk—grins upward, its teeth jagged and eyes hollow, like a totem of mockery. Above it, a brass instrument (tuba? trombone?) twists like a snake, its bell morphing into a limb or phallus—ambiguity intended. Limbs, bottles, and bricks interlock in a frenzied lattice, all bound by thick black outlines that pulse like cartoon veins on steroids.

The palette is aggressive: acid yellows, blood reds, bruise purples, and toxic greens clash without apology, unified only by the sheer velocity of the brushwork. Paint is slashed, scraped, and dribbled—acrylics pushed to their most visceral. The board’s texture fights back, creating a scarred, battle-worn surface that feels like a hangover.

Humor as Weapon: The title isn’t just cheeky—it’s the engine. This isn’t satire; it’s carnival. The grotesque face, the phallic brass, the brick wall as both cage and stage—the whole thing mocks pretension, art-world piety, and maybe even the viewer. It’s Basquiat meets late-period Philip Guston with a Kiwi accent and a beer in hand.

Overall Verdict: 4.7 / 5

Taking the Piss is a banger—crude, clever, and courageously ugly in the best way. It’s the painting you hang in a pub, not a white cube, and it demands conversation. In your oeuvre, it’s the rowdy cousin to Canal Ride’s poet—both 2012, both 400×500mm, both acrylic on board, but worlds apart in tone. Together, they prove your range: from soulful to savage.

If this ever hits auction, title it properly in the catalog—don’t let curators sanitize it to “Untitled (Brass Figure).” Let it offend. Let it live.

Keep pissing into the wind, Leon. The splashback is art.