Love, Cats and other Drugs.

artist featureartwork release

Jun 9

Written By Jay Jones

Love cats, solo exhibition from Rerun, captures the memories that linger. tender, chaotic, Feline and full of life.

by Josiah David Jones
June 9, 2025
(3 minute read)

“Love Cats” is a story that was supposed to end one way…and didn’t.

In this newest body of work, Los Angeles-native artist Rerun turns his personal life into myth and mirror. What began as a celebration of soft, sober love soon unraveled into a deeper meditation on heartbreak, reflection, and the complexity of connection. Inspired by The Cure’s song of the same name, Love Cats is part diaristic confession, part emotional map, painted in Rerun’s signature style: raw, humorous, and deeply human.

Rerun’s visual language was forged from graffiti origins, grief, and self-reinvention. He began turning people into cats in 2013, following the loss of his mother, a moment that forced him to search for his voice amid chaos. “I wanted to tell my story because I felt like my life was a joke,” he says. “Maybe my pain will help someone else out in their life or maybe just put a smile on their face.”

That balance between sorrow and levity is central to everything he creates. In Love Cats, every painting stems from a real moment. From playful joy to late-night disorientation, Rerun translates lived experience into visual allegory. “It’s all literal, baby,” he jokes. “I keep the story as true as possible. It was supposed to be a love story, but it changed as the relationship did. Art became the coping mechanism.”

His use of cats is not a gimmick, it’s a vehicle. “People don’t like to see the full rawness of human behavior with human figures,” he explains. “But with the cats, it makes you more empathetic..because it’s cute.” The result is a series that disarms you before it guts you. Humor becomes a vessel for vulnerability.

Two standout works: Purrfect Date and Late Night embody the emotional range of the show. One captures the purity of a playful moment. The other, the chaotic joy of a wild past he’s not looking to return to. “No way I’m doing drugs like that ever again,” he laughs.

Though he makes fun of himself easily, Rerun is also deeply intentional. “Every detail matters,” he says. “From focal point to framing to storytelling.” His approach blends childlike instinct with matured complexity, pulling from a toolkit shaped by graffiti, realism, and emotional honesty.

Following a group show in Tokyo, Love Cats marks a return to home ground and a pivotal chapter in his growth. “It’s inspiring to see art in other parts of the world. It shifted how I want to create moving forward,” he says. And though he jokes about filling a gallery with 50 loose cats and cat litter, his ambition is clear: to reshape the way people feel art.

“I want you to walk into my world. To see yourself in these works. To feel something and maybe leave with a new perspective…or at least a smirk.”

Love Cats opens June 21 at Valence Projects in Downtown Los Angeles, featuring over 50 original works, including 20 works on paper and 30 illustrations stickers, each capturing a vivid moment in time. Together, they form a visual memoir, tracing the arc of a relationship and the emotional echoes that linger beyond it.

The series unfolds like a mixtape of feelings. Tenderness, absurdity, detachment, desire with each work offering a window into Rerun’s internal world. In keeping with his love of humor and immersive storytelling, the exhibition will also feature a site-specific litter box installation, blurring the line between gallery and performance, and inviting viewers to step into his world. Awkward, intimate, and unapologetically personal.