Oil on Canvas
 
18 x 24
 
The source and motivation for making this painting came from walking around Home Depot one afternoon. I was people-watching and saw an old biker and veteran who walked with a swagger and was dressed differently from everybody else in the store. He let me take his picture in the parking lot and I thought that he made for an excellent portrait of an apocalyptic survivor. As with any art you make, your personal life seeps into the intention of what you're making. This photo was taken in 2020 so the connection became clear pretty immediately. At that time, more people had died from the pandemic within a few months than U.S. troops in the Vietnam war. It felt like my own world was engaged in warfare, the battle of facing the ever increasingly worse news and worrying about the health of those close to me. This aged biker and veteran seemed to epitomize making it through hardships and chaos and inspired me. Lastly to connect further, I changed his patches to pictures representing sickness, the randomness of events, change and luck.