Art is a mirror
I got thinking about the broadest themes in my work. 'Human struggle and the search for Peace' seems apt since I was a child of the 70s and 80s with the threat of nuclear war looming.
History Repeating Itself
Back in February 2022 I was in Mexico with my family and was having a break from painting reading Ninth Street Women, stories of 5 abstract expressionists. It's a dense thick book that transports you back to the 60s. Post war 1920s, then the second world war. The artists flooded New York escaping from Europe, trying to find out if family were ok.
And now here we are again. While I was reading those chapters feeling the horror, Putin was circling Ukraine, pretending it was a military exercise.. and I was thinking how can humans keep repeating the same patterns? Haven't we learned? Now we are one year four months later and Ukraine battling for it's life.
Painting Emotion Beyond Words
The AbEx women were part of the largest American movement creating images from pure emotion, away from the realism and social commentary. From pain comes new creative outpouring.
In the exhibition 'Ukranian Art as Protest and Resilience', students at University of Notre Dame explore how Art has become a coping mechanism and a way to navigate grief and identity. The creation of contemporary Ukrainian art as war became an integral part of day-to-day reality. The artists highlighted in the exhibition reflect the emotions of ordinary people, many of whom suffer through unimaginable atrocities.
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