The Return

I keep thinking about the battles that do not end when the fight appears to be over. Addiction can bring people through cycles of struggle, hope, consequence, and return. A person may believe the battle is behind them, only to find themselves facing it again. The people who love them can be pulled into that fight, too, carrying fear, exhaustion, and the hope that this time will be different.

Napoleon’s repeated returns from exile gave me a way to make that cycle visible. The battlefield becomes a stand in for the conflict addiction creates: the private fight to break free, the damage left in its wake, and the work of finding a way forward after another return.

The fractured image, dark drips, and red marks keep the painting from settling into a clean story of defeat or triumph. The marks cross the figure and fall toward the people below. They suggest a struggle that does not stay contained to one person or one moment.

I wanted the familiar image to draw us in, then ask us to look past it. Addiction is not a grand battle with a single ending. It is a human struggle, lived in repeated moments of trying, falling, and trying again.

This painting is about the fight that returns, and the people still trying to find their way through it.