Oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″. Copyright, Gene Tempelmeyer, 2015
This painting was recently featured in the Toronto Star. I painted it several years ago to represent Revelation 22: “The angel showed me the river of the water of life… flowing from the throne of God… down the middle of the great street of the city. One each side of the river stood the tree of life… and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
I walked the two blocks from my church office to the corner of Yonge and Spring Garden, took a photo looking north, and used it for this painting. I was trying to paint the present reality of God’s kingdom if people choose the way of love. As it happens, this is the the stretch of Yonge Street we all recently saw from the standpoint of helicopters. This is where the tragedy occurred.