Lamentation / Jubilation

A R T I S T   S T A T E M E N T :

My on-going work, Lamentation & Jubilation, consists of two installations of individual portraits, the placement of which shifts as I continue to add new images.

Initially, I painted Lamentation to express my reaction to the tragedy of September 11th. As I worked, the world situation worsened. I realized my subject, Lamentation, was not restricted to this one horrific event, but was universal and historical. I needed to make a more global statement against war, hatred, and intolerance.

To this end, I juxtapose portraits in a symbolic way. For example, next to a grief-stricken Palestinian woman, I place an Israeli man in a state of shock; a black woman and a white woman are next to one another, and their gestures of grief are identical; next to a stoic elderly woman is a crying young child.

Jubilation is the antidote and foil to Lamentation. I depict the faces of family members and friends as they express happiness and amusement in all their varied manifestations. Lamentation & Jubilation exemplify the extremes of human emotion. In painting these two bodies of work, I have portrayed aspects of the human condition that we all experience and that remind us that despite our differences, we are essentially the same.

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L E A R N  M O R E :

L A M E N T A T I O N   /   J U B I L A T I O N