Whataburger fan paints pastoral landscapes featuring iconic burger chain
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}One Texan's bucolic scenes are capturing the Lone Star State's heart. (Michael Esparza)
If Thomas Kinkade only painted fast-food chains, the result would be this Texas-based artist Michael Esparza’s Etsy store.
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Esparza, of San Antonio, had just moved back to his hometown in 2012 after studying art in Italy, he told Texas Monthly.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The first thing Esparza did once he was back in the Lone Star State? Go to Whataburger.
“Then right after that, I went to Bill Miller’s. I just needed a burger, and I needed a po’ boy. I was already full after Whataburger, but I didn’t care,” he said to Texas Monthly.
It was after dining at the fast-food chain that Esparza had a lightbulb moment — to create bucolic scenes featuring Whataburger and other notable Texas outposts.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I wanted to make something that was super Texas. A landscape that was even more Texas than the landscape that we have,” he says. “A lot of people I would talk to in Europe, they would tell me what they thought Texas looked like. So I wanted to make those landscapes what they thought, but also as a person from here, I wanted to make them even more Texas. It’s like Texas squared.”
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Esparza started the series, intended to be “little beacons for where you live,” he said to Texas Monthly.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The artist started his Etsy shop in May and moved about one painting a month at a reasonable $15, until Jezebel senior staff writer Maria Sherman discovered the works earlier this month and sent a tweet about the collection. Now they are going for $25 apiece.
“Huge fan of this etsy store that apparently only sells romantic oil paintings of [T]exas fast food institutions,” the tweet said.
Since then, Esparza has been selling dozens of prints, Texas Monthly reported, and creating a lot of buzz on social media.
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But it’s not just Whataburger, Esparza is also painting an idyllic landscape featuring Bill Miller Bar-B-Q and Taco Cabana.
Something for every proud Texan.