The promise made to us when we are children is that of a free and limitless future. Looking back, how many choices we have made in total freedom? How many dreams have gone unfulfilled?
The brass plate at the bottom says "firefighter".
This painting is part of a series, called "Studies". Those "studies" examine the same theme over and over: how as children we were sometimes "shamed" in front of our peers, with the big question : did we get bigger or better from it?