Often my painting subjects come from the newspaper. I read it every day, not online, but on flimsy newsprint each morning. In the past I painted figures waiting in lines in Europe to get into a safe country, portraying each figure in the line, unique, different from the person standing before and after. It is how I got to know them. This past year I have seen many pictures of Ukraine, and I wanted to know it better, its people, their stubborn resistance, their resilience . In the paintings from Ukraine you will see now-- except for two landscapes before the war with warning clouds on the horizon-- there is a figure or two, a human presence. Some stand in the midst of destruction; some are on a train. One woman stands in front of the church, a man is putting out a fire. And while this may not seem to be a joyous collection, hope comes from the figures who appear. They keep going. Instead of oil I have used watercolor and ink on paper, as the country of Ukraine seems especially fragile now, uncertain.
I find joy on my own street as we see each other after COVID, in the way you can see a smile in the eyes of those who wear masks, or the way an elderly woman, sits on a bench with her dog in the afternoons, watching people go by. I have always wanted my paintings to connect with the world, here and in other countries. I painted a man above the city of Aleppo in Syria; a teenager in a structure at the Texas border, a woman in Iraq after endless war there. Each time I found myself amazed at their persistence, their survival. Perhaps I feel less helpless if I can connect to the world in image, on paper, on canvas. I have also included in this show a watercolor of the East Village in New York, a city near where I grew up and where my son, his wife and my grandson live today. Its color and jumbled horizon are what brings me joy, now that I can return there once in a while.
I hope to continue to paint in watercolor. I want my next group to be about trees, their capacity to survive and grow, their strength. I want to paint the river where I walk many days of the week. I will stick close to home for a while in my work.
View from Rivington Hotel, NYC
Kyiv Before the War
Kharkiv, Ukraine
Mairupol, Ukraine
