2014

16″x20″ – Acrylic on Stretched Canvas.

This scene of a Matador stabbing a massive bull in the back takes place in a crowd-filled stadium under the bright blue sky. The stadium covers one third of the background.The second third of the background is the agitated golden dust beneath their steps. The final third is veiled by a red curtain that extends from the Matador’s hand behind his back and rises up towards the sky; obscuring the future and leaving the bull’s–and the matador’s–fate up to the viewer. Bulls and matadors have been a recurrent theme in my work for the past decade. I painted this particular piece towards the end of 2014, when I was experimenting with ways to express finding courage within myself. At the time, I appreciated the ambiguity of the message: who is the courageous one, the bullfighter or the bull himself? Although the roles of oppressor and oppressed have changed over the years, this theme continues to provide me with ample fodder for the imagination, and I experience a sense of completion when painting this subject.