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The Vanishing - a beginning.
Carol Itzkowitz Neiman’s latest work reflects a theme that has become clearer over the last few years. History repeats itself is a statement that is heard often. However during the 20th century alone there were 2 World Wars, wars for domination, wars for the purpose of one country thinking they know how others should live, many civil wars, famine, poverty, natural disaster and so on. The list is endless. It is now the 21st century and it continues.
Economies rise and fall, groups continue to feel they are superior and have the right to dispose of others as if they were nothing.
The theme is not about the each atrocity or who did what to whom, but what is left in this wake. The painting “Alone” represents the result of AIDS. A child, orphaned because of AIDS; living with AIDS; being cared for by a stranger. This child is from Kenya, however this is played out around the world.
The paintings in this exhibition are just the beginning of an ongoing body of work. It is a never ending theme. Although people are portrayed in a number of paintings, it is only the faces of the children that are complete. In one painting of two singers on the Chinese Opera stage, masks are used rather than show their happy faces. In another representing Brazil, the viewer is looking at a float from “Carnivale”. A painting of celebration, but there is no distinguishable face of the woman on the float.
It is an adult world, where each generation is responsible for the children, yet each generation for whatever reason thinks it knows best, so the cycle continues -
The artist has spent much time in many of the places she depicts. Some are paintings from her own photographs, some from other’s travels, some a composite, such as her painting “Selling Wares on the Dal Lake”, Kashmir.
When she began this project, a list was made of countries where there is some of the most spectacular scenery, (Austria, Chile) but where some of the most horrible crimes against the people and the land have occurred and continue.
No country, no peoples are exempt from this including the USA. It was the aftermath of the natural disaster Katrina that set this project into full motion.
"You've got to be taught to hate and fear, its’ got to be drummed in your dear little ear, you got to be carefully taught." (South Pacific, musical by Rogers & Hammerstein, 1949)
click on the link below to see a PDF slideshow of the exhibition
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