Well I for one love to hear the story behind the work, if you care to share more than the great drawing.

This site is suppose to be about sharing images but the thoughts behind those images carry some insight as to what the artist is trying to convey. They also help the artist understand himself on a certain level (just ask me!) LOL As it stands, I like this presentation very much, but the story would give me some added depth to it.

OK here is the story:

I arrived in Santiago, Chile on the 16th of October 2019. Two days later, massive protests and riots began. On the night of the 18th a building a few blocks away from where I was staying went up in flames. It was one of the scariest moments of my life.

As the days went on, I slowly came to understand the political situation that led to the protests, and the various mistakes that the Chilean government has made over the last 30 years which eventually led us to this point. The response to the protests has been well-intentioned, but very poorly orchestrated, and has involved numerous abuses of power of all sorts.

The protests themselves have also changed, and although they haven't stopped, they are no longer nearly as scary as they once were. The woman above is my girlfriend, who was with me when the riots broke out.

The day I took that reference photo was exactly one week after the start of the protests, and it was a truly historic day for Chile. A march of over a million people walked in protest about 3 blocks from where we lived. The march was not scary: It was beautiful. It spoke of peaceful change. On that day, we went and watched some of it, and then we looked for a café that was open (which was very difficult: We only found one). We sat down, and played a game of go. The photo is of her, holding a go stone, looking at the board and wondering what to play next.

Since then she has returned to Mexico, but I am still in Chile for work. Shortly after she left, the protests began to acquire a different flavor. There were still many protests about political issues, but there were also numerous protests relating to the abuses of power on the part of police. One of the bigger movements accused them of sexual abuses towards female protestors.

A group of female protestors put on a choreography outside the police department that went viral called "un violador en tu camino" (a rapist in your path). Although the lyrics, etc. are aimed very sharply at the Santiago police department, the song has been adapted to numerous other situations. Among them, in my own hometown a large (but completely peaceful) protest began about sexual abuse on the part of the university.

My girlfriend herself had suffered harassment on more than one occasion from professors at this university when she was a student there, and she actively supported the protests, as did many other people I know and respect. Had I been there, I would have gone myself.

The vehicle in the picture is a vehicle that was in the Santiago city square. It belongs to the Santiago police department, and my girlfriend, who was leaning over a table, is depicted leaning over the police vehicle. Standing for the female protestors resisting the sexually abusive system. I deliberately removed any obvious Santiago Police department markings on the side, because it can stand for the university in my hometown as well.

The hand is mine, because it was the easiest to draw. It is meant to be shown as in a position where it could potentially surround and crush both the vehicle and her. It represents the general danger involved in this sort of protest action, which can lead to violent riots like those of October the 18th, or to police brutality like what came later.