Under Redemption: 2018


Under Redemption

The Meaning

In “Under Redemption”, we see an illustration of how I envision my child inside, underneath Christ.

My Inner Child

My child has dirty, torn clothes with a red glowing background to express the hell I have been through and where I came from. This image is the core, iconic imagery that begins the book, “The Secret That Kills / Spirit That Saves.”

In Peace and Rest

My child is looking up in bewilderment, but he sees the redemption in the wound on Christ’s foot, where we see light beaming through, down on him. He also notices seraphim angels flying around inside the cloak of Him who are at peace and rest inside of Christ. This seemed utterly impossible for my child to be free like the other children and he wondered why he was having such an experience at all.

An Unfamiliar Face

As my child continues to look up to an unfamiliar face, he notices the compassion of Christ for his past afflictions as His tears flow down his face. A dove then appears out of His hands as water comes dripping down through His fingers indicating a cleansing from the past abusive experiences with parents and other people, which the child never chose to be with.

Out of the water comes a fire, revealing a new relationship and a renewed soul, giving my child hope and encouragement for his future. Palm trees then float in from space and come around the hooded Savior and drip with water below to show the future in heaven with my child.

The Process

This piece was inspired by my twelve-step journaling and books that I was reading at the time. I remember being very candid and clear about all the hell that I had gone through in the past, all the way up into the present when I was developing this illustration. Also, this piece was very closely related to Ball and Shame” which I did the previous year.

Usually, my paintings inspired me to write, but this one was just the opposite. I was amazed at how clear things became to me as I was unfolding lies with truth with the help of real testimonies of others that I heard and read about in books from Narcotics Anonymous, and especially from my friend Scottie for whom I painted “Scottie’s Apocalypse.”

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