Escape

Putting my personal life in my art is not common for me. At least not directly (plenty in a symbolic way). This is my most personal piece to date.

The image shows a figure emerging into a new world. The gate he passes through is less a portal and more a rip, his reality tearing into the unreal in an almost violent burst. At the edges of the tear, the texture changes, morphing into a halftone comic book fantasy.

But he is not just emerging, he is escaping. What he is escaping from is quite harrowing. But the presence of the sword means that perhaps this place - this dream - is somewhere he can find strength and the means to protect what he is leaving behind in the hospital bed.

Over the last couple of years one of my children was very sick. Thankfully, that episode had a happy ending, as all the best stories do. But I wanted to make this piece to show all of the myriad ways a person like me copes. There is guilt, for turning from the real towards a dream. But there is reason in it too, as this is my way to find resolve and determination to look after those I love the most.