Growing up

I got into a lot of trouble as a kid. This painting was sort of an exploration of a few themes that ran through my youth. Some good, some terribly bad but all a part of the growing process. Growing up in the south SURROUNDED by criminal minds does weird things to a kid. My parents defiantly had their hands full for sure. Now looking back I don't wish to glorify or up lift the more nefarious elements of my "kidhood" But to see it for what is was. Ugly, violent traumatic and of my own doing.
The "prisioner of conscience" represents the excusses some of those people made for their actions. The tiny eyes behind the bars represent the truth.
The rose with the sun wheel and the skinhead girl represents the romantic symbolism of the of the sub-culture I was involved with in my early teens while the cop being punched and the skull with the bats represents the ugly truth.
For me this painting is about looking at crude rugged truth in the face, having an honest realization and then learning from it. It took me two weeks to do this painting. And It's going to a friend In DC.

-Murray