There are some memes that are perfect complements for one another, but you’d never realize it until someone puts them together. The woman yelling at cat meme is one of the best examples, in which Taylor Armstrong from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is placed side by side with an ornery feline. Once together, you can never imagine them apart.
Artist Ross Baines is the latest person to blow the internet’s collective mind with a painting that perfectly pairs two disparate memes into one funny image. Baines created a work of art featuring a laughing Ray Liotta in the film Goodfellas and placed the portrait in the same composition alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, also laughing, in the movie Django Unchained. With their similar attire and expressions, you’d think that they were originally in the same scene. But it’s Baines’ skill as a painter that makes for a seamless combination; it gives the internet a new opportunity for more jokes.
Baines began this piece after the recent death of Liotta. (He died on May 26, 2022.) “I decided to paint a piece from Goodfellas and there were several cool images I considered painting,” he tells My Modern Met. “The one with him laughing is so recognizable but was also really well known as a meme so I painted a different piece of him first and planned to do something a bit unique with the laughing image later.”
The stroke of inspiration came after that. “I happened to see the iconic Leonardo DiCaprio meme on Twitter and that was the lightbulb moment,” Baines explains, and he then got to work. “The painting took around 25–30 hours to complete and sold to a cocktail bar owner from Australia a few days later.”
This is the start of a new body of work for Baines. “After painting this piece I’m definitely planning on painting more pieces that combine iconic characters in a unique or unexpected way.” Follow him on Instagram to see what he comes up with next.
Artist Ross Baines created perfectly paired meme art by combining Ray Liotta in the film Goodfellas and Leonardo DiCaprio from Django Unchained.
With their similar attire and expressions, you’d think that they were originally in the same scene.
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Ross Baines: Instagram | Big Cartel
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Ross Baines.
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