Waking War Horse
I can see how some view this as a fallen horse, but my intent, as the title indicates, is a waking battle horse. I was initially inspired by a song by the German band the Caspar Brotzmann Massaker, with lyrics that say “Don’t wake up the war horse.” But at the time that I produced this the theme had two applications to my personal situation:One is that I was dealing with artistic burnout, but was determined to move on, or continue the battle. The other is that I had become increasingly intolerant of a few self-righteous idiots who had meddled in my affairs. I was feeling a bit less like the slaughtered bull of the “Mithra” painting, and more like an aroused war horse. And, although I have no desire to get descriptive about the situation, it was soon after this painting that I quit being nice and finally gave these dopes the fight that they’d been trying to pick. So this painting was descriptive, at the time, of the change of attitude that I was taking on regarding that thing.