Permission for the Devil to Live On - Original Oil on Canvas - 86cm x 71cm

Painted entirely in shades of red during a single cathartic session, Permission for the Devil to Live On emerged from a period where the weight of the world felt impossible to ignore. News of war in the Strait of Hormuz, stories of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power, and the growing sense that ordinary people had become emotionally paralysed by it all created a profound feeling of anger, fear, and helplessness.

Unlike many works built slowly through layers and revision, this painting was created alla prima — completed in a few intense hours without hesitation or overthinking. It was less constructed than released. The marks were made instinctively, allowing emotion to move directly from the body into the canvas. The red palette became symbolic of both violence and vitality: rage, blood, urgency, grief, and the strange aliveness that exists inside moments of confrontation.

The title reflects the central tension within the work — the unsettling idea that evil often survives not simply because of monstrous acts, but because it becomes entangled within the systems and comforts people depend upon. The painting wrestles with the feeling that removing what is corrupt or destructive may also require dismantling parts of the world people are unwilling to let go of. That contradiction became the source of the work’s frustration and emotional intensity.

Yet despite its darkness, the process itself became deeply cathartic. By the end of the session, the emotion no longer existed solely inside the artist. The painting became a vessel for pain, anger, fear, and exhaustion — transformed from something internal and overwhelming into something visible, tangible, and confronted openly.