Artist Statement:

The roof represents a home, a boundary, and a safe space. In third world urban settings, the corrugated galvanized-iron roofing serves two functions. First and most obvious, being the roof over our heads. Second, a barricade or a walling substitute and patching.

"A Thousand Blows" is a figurative expression, through materiality in art, of the struggles and challenges within the boundaries of a home and how its occupants must overcome obstacles and intense situations. In classical still-life paintings, a skull is often painted as a reminder of man's mortality. The disfigured solitary roof (textures, cuts and oxidation) in "A Thousand Blows" may come as a reminder of both the vulnerability of homes and its capability to withstand the tests of time.