Artists' Directory
Elizabeth Bloom
I am in awe of the boundless variety of color and form that exist in nature and in the human face -- by the way light, time and states of mind fluctuate and change what we see and how we appear. My on-going work, Lamentation/Jubilation consists of two installations of many individual portraits whose placement shifts as I continue to add new images to the series. Initially, I painted Lamentation to express my reaction to the tragedy of September 11th. As I worked on the images, subsequent horrific events, both political and natural, occurred. I decided to make a more global statement against war, hatred and intolerance. To this end, I juxtaposed portraits in a symbolic way: Next to a grief stricken Palestinian woman, is an Israeli man in a state of shock; next to a black woman is a white woman whose gestures of grief are identical; next to a stoic elderly woman is a crying young child. Jubilation is the antidote to the sadness and grief in Lamentation. It depicts the faces of family members, friends and others expressing happiness and amusement in all their varied manifestations. “Lamentation/Jubilation” exemplifies the opposite 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. | |
