2024.09 Persecution - The Martyrs. 63x80. Acrylic on Canvas. Live collaboration at L4 with Bryn Gillette and Alexis Newsom

This was painted live in Seoul, Korea during the global congress in about an hour. There is a great time-lapse video of the work starting upside down with the red dripping, and then the moment we flipped the painting before I painted “The Bride” of Christ as the martyr. As we listened to testimonies from the stage that night about the persecuted church, this painted was in solidarity and prayer for those harmed and those sitting in current danger. I remember sitting on the floor at one point unable to lift my head with the weight of the moment. My hands were bloody red with paint as we physically identified with those suffering through the act of painting. It was visceral and prophetic… an act of unexpectedly costly prayer, and only a pale echo and fraction of the cost of those who have given their lives for the gospel. I had no idea how much persecution was happening in North Korea, just miles from where we stood, with so many South Korean family members separated by the border or working secretly with the underground church across the DMZ.