Playing Dead Painting

This is an oil painting on canvas depicting me and my brother playing in the summer on Long Island as boys. After a year and a half of not seeing my brother because of COVID-19, I found the image going through a drawer of old family photos.I was struck by the ghostly image of my brother lying down and my own gaze and smile at the camera. Without the context of the game we were playing, the poses could be interpreted in a more sinister way, and it is this enigma that I wanted to play with in the painting. There is a push and pull between violence and play, especially between brothers, and it is this push and pull that I hope to have conveyed in the work.