Though Trey Speegle uses vintage paint-by-number paintings as his source material, he explains that they are a type of “visual vocabulary” he juxtaposes with text in order to subvert their intended meanings. Speegle mimics the kitschy, cartoonish aesthetic of these paint sets, and sometimes uses real paint-by-number canvases, in his own work. By overlaying words and phrases onto urban and nature scenes, faces, and flowers, he alters the meanings of the text and the images and imbues his works with irony and ambiguity.