(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Come on.

(Mehran whistles) All right, get your butt in.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat jazz music) Being surrounded by imagery and imaginative exploits and paintings and words is just a way of showing reverence and a celebration of all the beautiful, wondrous things around me.

And it keeps the world alive.

(upbeat jazz music continues) My name is Mehran.

I go under the artist moniker, Eatcho.

And I'm a working artist here in Portland, Oregon.

(upbeat rhythmic music) (upbeat rhythmic music continues) (upbeat rhythmic music continues) When I'm drawing or illustrating, very therapeutic, very healing.

I have no stops, or goes on if it looks good, or if people are going to like it or not.

I'm just driven to get it out.

I have a lot of details in my work and small things intertwining.

(bright music) You're gonna have to look at that work and move around it and discover things on your own.

(bright music continues) Once you come to that, you know, your own discovery in something you see, you kind of own it personally a little.

You're like, "That's mine, you know, I took the work and effort to find that weird creature in that corner that's saying something to me or whatnot."

(bright music continues) And I'll go back to my old pieces and I like that 'cause it surprises me.

Years later, I'll look at that and go, who is this guy?

So I'm talking to myself, you know?

And I love that part too.

I hope that makes sense.

I'm all over the place sometimes and that's how my work is, you know, (laughs) so.

(train whirring) I wanted to work on clothes with my artwork because I like the idea of the art moving around.

My painting is not in a gallery just sitting there collecting dust.

Now, the artwork is just moving around.

And I like that.

It's just like, where are you gonna go today, artwork?

And it's just moving around on someone's body.

(upbeat rhythmic music) The work on clothing started in Japan.

I was in Sapporo and started drawing with a Sharpie on my pants in order to translate things a little easier.

If I wanted to use the bathroom or I wanted to eat something, I'd just draw it on my pants and I'd be able to point to it.

(upbeat rhythmic music continues) This jacket I'm painting right now is for a dear friend of mine who's a musician.

She's a wonderful singer.

So I'm gonna paint a musician I love very much.

And that's the artist formerly known as Prince.

All right, so if you notice, this dove is crying.

Just make sure you notice that.

There's some symbology.

♪ This is what it sounds like ♪ ♪ Doves cry ♪ We'll use the airbrush.

Really bring him alive a little more.

What I like about airbrush is it cuts down a lot of the blending time.

It helps give also the black and white work a little bit more depth and shadow.

Every little pair of jeans and item of clothes is original.

And once you have that and you have a one of a kind, you know, item of clothes that you're gonna wear all your life.

And someone's like, "Where'd you get that weird thing?"

And it'll be a long story.

You might make a new friend, so.

(Mehran laughs) (upbeat music) Another theme in this is how UFOs are real.

And that's another thing about our world that we're living in now.

And I'd like to always put that in my work.

Little UFOs everywhere.

(ethereal music) I was born on a planet called Krypton, (flying saucer whooshes) found in a farm.

(record scratches) No, I'm just joking.

(laughs) No, I was born in Los Angeles and I was only there until around three.

And then my mother moved to Fresno, California.

And then a small town right on the side of Fresno, Clovis, is where I was raised.

When I was young, I had to be around five years old, I was watching Mickey Mouse with an adult.

And they drew a picture of Mickey Mouse at the same time I'm watching it.

And it blew my mind that you can create the things that you see.

And when he showed me that, I was done.

And so after that, I was like, "Oh, okay, I get it."

And so, I've just been drawn since five ever since then.

So, this is all painted, but look at this painter, dude.

One of the artists I was really inspired by in the beginning was Salvador Dali.

A lot of people remember the dripping clocks, but those dripping clocks were also speaking about time.

(gentle upbeat music) Everyone can paint a pretty picture, but what is it saying?

And so, that's what I always try to challenge myself when I'm doing something.

(gentle upbeat music continues) I wouldn't wanna say that I always want people to have a positive experience with my work.

I would like them to have a real experience.

Whether the experience is something you don't like or you do like, you at least can learn from it.

And I hope I can be a part of that to always inspire people to have their eyes open and be willing to take in the reality that's coming in.

(upbeat electronic music) It doesn't matter how long I've been doing murals, every single one is always like diving in the deep part of a pool you've never been in.

And you never know what you're gonna get.

And it's really great because the wall communicates back to you on how the wall should be painted on.

(machine revs) The Cathedral Park Mural, it's a tribute to the jazz district in Portland.

And jazz is always described with jazz as flow.

And that's all water is known to do is just flow.

So jazz and water is kind of the main focuses in that.

(mellow jazz music) It left me room to be very free and flowing.

(mellow jazz music continues) (birds chirping) The mural at The Knock Back, the mural is real positive, real fun.

And it's also a nod to my old style, which was, I would say, more cartoonish and more energetic and more colorful.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music fades) The influence I hope my work has on the world is just to inspire people to keep learning and to be curious.

- Right here.

- [Mehran] That's part of the rain.

- The rain?

- Yeah, this right here is.

Where if someone's walking by and they look at that piece of artwork and they go, "What is that, why is that?

That's crazy."

And I'm like, "Yeah, so is everything, that's neat."

- Keep up the good work.

- Thank you very much.

Y'all have a good one.

I constantly want to remind people about how magical this is, this experience is.

We're actually all collectively creating magic.

He's so chill with it.

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