This painting reflects Bartow's life-long interest and respect for the transformations we experience over the course of our lives. He often depicted connections between humans and animals with each springing from an amorphous shape, part human, part animal and part unknown. Bartow wrote and spoke about the interdependence of species.
In 1989 Bartow wrote: "I work in an expressionistic manner using what I refer to as transformational images, which have evolved from work done in 1979, when I began drawing figures with masks either being removed or falling off the face. These images, I find, coincide with my having returned from Viet Nam and subsequent sobriety, obviously a cathartic period in my life."