He Believed in Equality for All (II)- Created during the haunting stillness of the pandemic, He Believed in Equality for All (II) transforms a paper mask into both an object of survival and a site of protest. The mask becomes a sculptural surface—folded, vulnerable, breathing with the memory of a time when protection, fear, and politics intertwined. At the centre of the painting, a lone man holds multiple oxygen cylinders close to his body. His pose echoes Diego Rivera’s Girl with Lilies, where the weight of flowers subtly reflected the burdens carried by the working class. Here, the lilies are replaced with oxygen cylinders—symbols that became painfully precious during the COVID crisis. What once stood for devotion and ritual now becomes a commentary on desperation and privilege. Around him, only the upper halves of elderly faces emerge from the lower edge of the mask. Their presence is quiet yet urgent: a reminder of the countless older individuals who struggled to access something as basic—and as essential—as breath. Their partial visibility mirrors how they were pushed to the margins of care during those months. The pointing hands in the background extend blame, dictate power, and fracture any illusion of equality. The work speaks to the disturbing reality of that time—when oxygen was hoarded by the powerful, and the act of survival depended not on need, but on who controlled the supply. By painting this narrative on a handmade paper mask, the artwork folds personal protection into collective memory. It stands as a tender yet critical reminder of how fragile the promise of equality becomes under the weight of crisis, and how systems of power decide who breathes, and who does not.