“Dish of the Day” is a darkly ironic and deeply unsettling work. At first glance, I painted the figure as angelic — a halo hovering above the head, wings spread wide — yet the body is stripped down to bone. That contrast is deliberate. It sets up the central tension of the painting: innocence versus brutality, morality versus consumption. This angel is not divine in the traditional sense; it is exposed, vulnerable, and complicit.
The skeleton holds cutlery, calmly poised over a plate where a vivid red heart is served as food. The act is ritualistic rather than violent — not a crime, but a system. For me, the heart becomes a symbol of what is repeatedly taken from us: compassion, empathy, labour, love. The calm posture is what unsettles me most. This is not chaos; it’s routine.
The split background of blue and red reinforces that moral divide — heaven and hell, cold and heat, reason and emotion — while the raw brushstrokes and heavy colour keep the work grounded in human experience, not religious fantasy. This angel isn’t saving anyone. It reflects a world where even those meant to protect end up consuming, where suffering is normalised and neatly presented as the “special of the day.”
Looking at this painting takes me back to one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. I was living through a deep depression, and the only way to scare the demons away was to take one step at a time. I survived by feeding myself with my own emotions, my own despair, turning pain into sustenance. This work comes from that place — a reminder that sometimes survival means eating your own heart, and learning to live with what it costs.
— MAAS
"Technique painting: Acrylic, Oil, Tempera, Chalk, Oil Pastels on Canvas and spray paint on canvas 40" by 32"
“Dish of the Day” is a darkly ironic and deeply unsettling work. At first glance, I painted the figure as angelic — a halo hovering above the head, wings spread wide — yet the body is stripped down to bone. That contrast is deliberate. It sets up the central tension of the painting: innocence versus brutality, morality versus consumption. This angel is not divine in the traditional sense; it is exposed, vulnerable, and complicit.
The skeleton holds cutlery, calmly poised over a plate where a vivid red heart is served as food. The act is ritualistic rather than violent — not a crime, but a system. For me, the heart becomes a symbol of what is repeatedly taken from us: compassion, empathy, labour, love. The calm posture is what unsettles me most. This is not chaos; it’s routine.
The split background of blue and red reinforces that moral divide — heaven and hell, cold and heat, reason and emotion — while the raw brushstrokes and heavy colour keep the work grounded in human experience, not religious fantasy. This angel isn’t saving anyone. It reflects a world where even those meant to protect end up consuming, where suffering is normalised and neatly presented as the “special of the day.”
Looking at this painting takes me back to one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. I was living through a deep depression, and the only way to scare the demons away was to take one step at a time. I survived by feeding myself with my own emotions, my own despair, turning pain into sustenance. This work comes from that place — a reminder that sometimes survival means eating your own heart, and learning to live with what it costs.
— MAAS
"Technique painting: Acrylic, Oil, Tempera, Chalk, Oil Pastels on Canvas and spray paint on canvas 40" by 32"
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