Very soon after the death of George Floyd, before I'd heard much about it I happened to watch the whole video showing his arrest and murder, beginning to end. Needless to say, it deeply affected me and for reasons I can’t fully express yet, I wanted to paint it. Throughout my life I've mostly tried to paint and photograph beauty in some form. I wanted to explore the feelings I had as I watched that video. This scene is ugly and violent and it makes me nervous and unsure to share it, not knowing what people will think. Perhaps my reason is to create something that expressed my anger and sadness from watching such brutality. It's abhorent to me. Perhaps it's motivated by the deeper sadness and realization of the undeniable fact that this sort of injustice and violence has been going on for hundreds of years. Maybe I, a privileged white man of 50+ years, while perhaps somewhat "woke" is having a deeper awakening. I'm not sure at this time but I was compelled to paint this. Hoepfully it speaks for itself. The systemic and overt racism and violence must stop. These systems we have, both in physical practice and in our thoughts must be destroyed. When I was a kid I wrote in my journal that I thought Humans / Humanity had great potential for good but we must overcome our animal instincts and selfishness to attain our true potential. #blacklivesmatter