I had a good idea of what I wanted this painting to convey and what I wanted it to look like fairly early in the process of making it. Sometime in 2007 (perhaps 2008) I had been reading an account of the horrific violence then taking place as part of the insurgency in Iraq. One article relayed an incident that had occurred at either an Iraqi police station or army base. A man approached the front gate of the facility, strapped to his eyeballs with explosives and carrying an AK-47, which he fired at the men guarding the facility. One of the guards explained to the author of the article that they quickly returned fire, but before they brought the would-be bomber down he yelled repeatedly, "God is great! I'm going to kill you!" That phrase struck me immediately, and I have thought about it ever since. Of course, people have been slaughtering each other in the name of their various conceptions of god(s) practically since the dawn of time and it is very easy (for me, at least) to not concern one's self with acts of savagery in other parts of the world, but sometimes things happen or things are said that put it in very stark terms and remind me of the horror and stupidity of it all. I've never been one to begrudge someone their religious beliefs, but being a somewhat disinterested agnostic myself, I've never understood or experienced the passion religious or spiritual beliefs can create in a person's life.
The idea I had in mind when making "Martyr's Last" was the change in understanding of the word 'martyr,' from someone willing to give up their own life to someone willing to inflict massive violent death on as many people they can. In this picture I hoped to use exaggerated, cartoonish visual forms to convey a notion of insanity, destruction, and absurd violence inflicted on the self and outward onto others.
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