< Proposal >

When I first saw “The Son of Man” when I was young, my first impression was that the painting was scary. I guess I felt that way then because the man in the painting was “hiding” something; he is hiding his face behind the green apple, and his left arm is slightly hidden behind his overcoat. I still feel the same way about it. I read through what the artist had to say about his painting, and as a matter of fact, he intended the secrecy implied in the work.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. What is real and what is not? Does he mean it by what he says? It takes a lot of energy for me to figure out if other people are smiling at me for real or if they’re just faking it. So I just settled on one thing: I don’t believe anyone anymore. This lets me not use up ton of energy into figuring out if someone is honest to me or not.

So what I’d like to do is reform this painting in some way, like drawing facial expressions on him or changing the background, to convey this message more clearly to modern people. I’d like to help people to be honest with each other.