Motivet är en parafras på Dierc de Bouts målning "The Martyrdom of St Erasmus" från 1458, och del av en lång serie verk med samma motiv. Viktor Rosdahl skrev i en text 2007:

"This was one of the next works, simply called the martyrs. Were the two characters have aged some, but also found their way out in space. I wanted too give them sort of a God like appearance and was very engulfed by old Persian paintings and early Russian Bysantin which with it´s thick outlines and simplified abstracted language resembled graffiti. I found the mud filled and stinking tarpaulin in a yard of a friends house and it proved to have certain light transparent qualities. I did a cast in plastic in order to have lights coming from behind it while it still hung on the wall. And then used silver and golden pens, which I normally were using writing on the city when my feet happened to take those paths."