This painting is by Andre Lyles , a graduate of the San Francisco Academy of Art University.
This painting is rich with symbolism and allegory. At the top left of the painting is the angel Uriel, the angel who guarded the Garden of Eden. Uriel is looking down with displeasure at the Castrocreepers who are beating Matthew Shepherd to death. The beating of Matthew Shepherd in the painting symbolizes the beating down by Castrocreepersociety of all those lower and middle class gays who are similarly situated as Matthew Shepherd. At the top right of the painting again we have Uriel, this time holding his flaming sword and smiling down on Matthew Shepherd and his boyfriend as they look out the window of the Castro apartment that they might have lived in if the Castrocreepers had not insisted on maintaining the Castro District as a mausoleum of Victorian palaces. At the bottom of the painting, again we have the Castrocreeper couple, the Castrocreeper on the right is insolently sucking a lollipop, unaware of Uriel’s displeasure. But is he really totally unaware? As he sucks his lollipop, he nervously glances to the birch tree at the right, a symbol of both renewal and defeat and destruction. At this point we do not know if he is headed for renewal or defeat.