Category Archives: Drawings

War and families

I began with the idea of painting a portrait of my family, but decided instead to focus on my sister and myself. However, I wanted to relate our family to the larger world. With the war now, and the ramifications war has had on families throughout the centuries, I wondered how we, as children, would survive during wartime. This was not idle curiosity, as my Father went to England during World War II, as part of the Kindertransport. Growing up with almost no supervision or parenting, I am not sure if I could have been as responsible as he had to be at such a young age.

One panel of painting, unfinished

Tentatively titled '117'

Thinking about women’s bodies

and our different depictions in art. To think that powerful forces, past and present, dictate how we image ourselves is both enlightening and frightening. In this new painting, I am contrasting the powerful figure from a photograph by Leni Riefenstahl with images of women who must cover themselves. Propaganda art is a potent dictator of fashion, but so too is religion. Here I am working on two divergent representations, perhaps about to come into conflict.

oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, unfinished

graphite, 14 x 18 inches