Oil on canvas, 40" x 60", Unframed

I wanted to guide the viewer into a two-layered reaction with this one. I wanted their first reaction to be of horror, confusion, dismay, and violence. Then, after this initial, emotional reaction, I wanted the viewer to be able to visually investigate the entire picture and find clues that would explain and/or rationalize why their initial feelings were just over reactions and can be discarded.

For example, I wanted the viewer to see the baby as a hideous, cannibalistic, 'Night of the Living Dead' type blood-bath, monster child, devouring the flesh of who knows WHAT.... But upon further visual investigation, I wanted the viewer to be able to find the ketchup bottle and say, "OOOOOHHH... ha ha... that's not blood! It's just ketchup. This isn't the horrific scene that I thought it was. This is probably just a messy baby at dinner time and he's gotten ketchup all over himself as he's eating. I've seen that before... nothing's wrong here."

Because this is exactly the process that I believe our minds enact when we are confronted with the fact that the "meat" on our table was a living, breathing being who had a family, friends and a job - a life that they loved - JUST LIKE US, and they were murdered. And now we're going to eat their flesh.

But humans don't want to think about it in this way, so we rationalize and turn something unthinkable it into a "normal" human thing.