L.A.-based contemporary artist Sham Ibrahim recently caught the media’s attention with his portrait of Rihanna’s bruised police headshot.

Sham told E! Online: “I thought the bruises in the police photo were interesting shapes to draw. And it was cool to color them pink and blue. Those are two of my favorite colors.”

And when asked about the meaning for his piece, he stated: “There is no message to any of my art. It’s meant to look cool hanging on your wall and that’s it! I’m not into deep meanings.”

Uh, yeah, we know–first of all, it’s pretty odd to hear that an artist had no meaning behind his work, but even more shocking was that he had no intention of making a statement about our society, domestic violence, media, etc. by using such an infamous photo that depicts such an appalling event.  Hollywire had to find out WTF this guy was thinking.  This couldn’t be for real, right??

In our exclusive interview, Sham explains what was really meant by his statements to E! and exactly why he had no intention of instilling a message within his art.  Watch and you’ll probably be much more understanding–we were–and find out how he’s turning this bad attention into something very GOOD.