Roy Ferdinand is a well respected Outsider artist. I have a good friend who happened to know Roy and suggested we might go to lunch. Roy is in his late 30s I believe and we met at Casimento's Oyster restaurant on Magazine street. I ended up buying a couple of paintings from Roy after I was done and he told me of his life of drug abuse, jail time and living on the streets of New Orleans that few of us would like to experience. Roy reeked of marijuana and heartily chowed down an oyster poor boy and beer. I found him to be a very sweet but troubled man.
Roy's art is considered self-taught and he is very popular with the Outsider art scene. Mostly he paints with pen and watercolor and his art is like the movie Pulp Fiction. Lots of sex, drugs, and violence. Of the three painings I bought from him, "Urban Libation" is my favorite. It depicts a couple of youths pouring beer into a garbage can fire, while a pair of sneakers are tied together and hanging over the telephone wires above. This is a gang style memorial service for a fallen friend and Roy put a lot of great detail in the picture.