Man Throwing Up His Bad Deeds

Inspired by the 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing, this painting is about Anwar Congo. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than 500,000 alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed 1,000 people with his own hands, using a garrote because it was less bloody. Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide.

At the end of the film, Mr. Congo re-visits the rooftop where many of his killings took place; the documentarians convince him to simulate wrapping  a garrote around his own neck and he begins to dry heave uncontrollably as the horror of his actions seem to finally sink in.

The fish in the painting reference a giant stage prop that was prominently featured at the beginning and end of the film.