Liberty Lost (G20, Toronto) (2010) is the artists’ response to the events surrounding the G20 Summit in Toronto in 2010, and, in particular, the massive and repressive police presence. It is loosely based on Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty Guiding the People (sometimes referred to as ‘Liberty on the Barricades’) painted during the insurrection of 1830 in Paris.
While Delacroix’s painting represents the struggle for liberal or parliamentary democracy in 18th and 19th century France, Liberty Lost represents the limits of that form of democracy; a form that protects private ownership and wealth