The Squareness of Tradition:

It is true: LIFE is inherently violent. The birth of a child is both beautiful and simultaneously violent and bloody. Lovemaking, in its purely physical state is, while sensual, wonderful and divine, a violent act. And although I find many aspects of bullfighting fascinating, the Squareness of Tradition relates to the pre-imposed notions, not just in bullfighting but in many more rituals and practices set by societies around the world that condone violence in the name of tradition. So much information and age-old customs have been carefully “packaged” and meticulously sub-planted in the human psyche and into our lifestyles that we rarely stop to think and to react beyond what’s expected of us.

In bullfighting, the animal is nothing but a completely innocent creature whose role is merely to provide entertainment while being provoked, butchered and tortured to death. In life, we are born innocent creatures into a world with pre-set notions, concepts and traditions that we are expected to learn and follow while becoming automatons that simply must accept “reality” as we are taught to know it.

What I have painted here, then, becomes an open invitation addressed to all aficionados of bullfighting around the world: become aware and be proactive; question everything; agitate the foundation of social traditions; challenge the system and the status quo in the hope that we all can one day break through the limits and the pre-imposed norms that are masked and established as so called “traditions.”