New sculptural wall piece for my solo show at Lanesboro Arts in Lanesboro, MN, in October2020.
This piece is inspired by a photograph of my two aunts Resi and Mechtild, when they were little girls, taken around 1940. Their father had been granted a brief home visit (he was drafted into the reserve army for WW2 – a war he hated) and his little daughters are enjoying a moment of closeness and peace sitting on his lap. Thankfully he survived the war. You can see so much heaviness and sadness in this picture. My mother and her siblings were much affected by the experience of living through the fear, death and chaos of WW2, throughout their lives. When I grew up I still felt that heaviness every day – it lived on in my parents. War has long reaching and severe consequences and is a far cry from glorious, even if sometimes tyrants need to be defeated. Also, this doesn’t discount the heroism and courage of the people fighting, living and dying during a war.