This painting was inspired by the El Greco painting, “St. Sebastian and the Beggar”. I was interested in the idea of how an image can equalize a Saint and a Beggar through composition, but the hierarchy remains due to the saint riding the horse. I amended the original figures, changing the hand of the “saint” to literally block the viewer from entering. I was interested in the way that a painting can guard itself, like a scene or a world that we can only ever partially enter.