The context of fighting as a medium had become most familiar at this point, though I could not speak to it. My frustration grew until depression set in, and so I stopped painting and began to burn my work in an effort to purge myself of a radical idea that seemed redundant in the shadow of the status quo.
I continued to teach and train despite feeling weak. I became negative and dark, like the ink in my work. I could not explore this question anymore, and so for a year or so I filled my creative work with what I saw as a platonic and therapeutic outlet in poetry and talking to my journal.
In 2017, I was now a father to two little boys. Something about being a father ignited my interest to move forward. Being a father refined my view of children as beautiful empty vessels where we can plant the seeds of tomorrow today. My writing became children’s stories and poems through which I began to explore the radical idea I tried to purge myself of a year before. Children’s stories and art became an alternative theme to my earlier work, through which I would renew it. I began to explore the medium of fighting again, however, I had exhausted the black and the martial arts theme, and so I looked elsewhere for it. The children’s stories and art began to parallel and even fuel a more vibrant and colourful shift in my painting.
