"Forgiveness 70x7 (Red/Blue)" acrylic on custom shaped wood panel, 2022, 33 inches across

This painting was inspired by Matthew 18:21-22 which says -

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

In this image, there are seventy faces in total, and each face is drawn with 7 lines, so it is a visualization of the math, and the faces get so small in the middle that they almost disappear because the whole point is that it's not about a quota anyways. But even though it's not really about an exact number, I painstakingly made sure that even the very smallest faces have their seven lines. I have somewhat larger fingers, and trying to do such tiny and precise work was very frustrating and uncomfortable and I had to keep starting over....all of which seemed like a great metaphor for how we struggle with forgiveness sometimes, but it's always better to push through!

I have made a couple renditions of this design. The red/blue combo can mean whatever you want it to, but I like to think of politics and male/female relations, two areas where we can always use some more forgiveness!

This is painted on a cradled wood panel that was cut to a custom contour with a CNC. The sides are painted and there is a wire on the back.