About this artwork

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6: 9-10
As stated by the wisest and wealthiest man in the Holy Bible, King Solomon, nothing is as banal and meaningless as unhealthy love of money. The unhealthy love of money is one of the banalities of evil in our daily lives which influenced my painting – “The Bait”
An unhealthy love of money is the root of all evil; everyone, great or small is vulnerable to succumb to the alluring of this bait. Money is often been used as bait to lure young people into a life of crime that may lead them to prison or their early grave. Money is often been used as bait for the prevention of justice. Many great people fell from grace when they succumbed to this bait.
I do not like to copy nature but use nature as a reference to create my work. Like surrealistic artists, I like to use unrealistic images to convey my messages. Fly fishing is a real method of fishing, but dollar fishing is unreal. In tackling this project, I put rolled-up notes of hundreds of dollars on the hook to which a large fish leapt out of the water to catch. This imagery is just a metaphor as the fishes leaping out of the water to the bait represent human beings of different sizes in life running after money.