"This painting came to me while I was driving home one evening November of 2025. I kept seeing a valley that looked like the Grand Canyon, but with an intimidatingly large concrete wall going down the center. No matter how hard I tried, my brain wouldn't let the image go until I started sketching out the idea. I kept drawing different perspectives and angles of the Canyon until I found one that gave me the scale I was looking for.

Frustration comes to mind when viewing this piece. if only that manmade concrete wall wasn't there blocking this ancient, historic and beautiful view. Why would anyone ever think to place a concrete wall inside of an ancient geological phenomena? 'Obstruction: Pay to View' makes physical what's slowly happening to the lands in America today. Bought, stripped, and developed into oblivion.

As we are made of the same atoms as all living things, public lands are for all of us. These landscapes were here long before us and will be here long after we are gone. Alternatively this painting poses the question, what walls do we each have hiding inside of our mental Grand Canyons?

-S.Christopher Kuithe