Aikshrees Kanduraja

The colors are pleasing.

You can always tell who it is he's painting.

But it's not, you know, John Trumbull's painting of the founders signing the Declaration of Independence or any of the other museum-grade paintings hanging in the Capitol Rotunda.

Of course, that does not stop Pablo.

And a couple months ago, he saw a way to make his dream happen.

In February, the House voted to rename the press gallery after Frederick Douglass, who, among many other things, was also the first Black reporter to cover the Capitol.

There was going to be a little renaming ceremony and press conference.

Well, it just so happened that Pablo had made a portrait of Frederick Douglass.

He'd been leaning against the wall in the press gallery for the last two years.

So Pablo quickly hatched a plan.

He's going to grab his painting, sneak his painting into the room where the ceremony is going to take place, and slip it onto a table where everyone can see it.

I scoped out the room.

I was like, oh, there are artifacts about Frederick Douglass here.

Like there was this ledger of sales and stuff like that under glass.

I was like, I'm going to go grab my painting and put it on a table.

And I did.

It's like a pop art portrait of Frederick Douglass with a yellow background, like a distinct yellow background.

It's a pretty big canvas, nearly life-sized.

And it sticks out compared to, say, the items on loan from the Library of Congress.

but nobody says anything.