Nativity
42″ x 52″ oil/canvas
In America, Christmas had passed, the Christian creches were tucked away, Kurds were fleeing from Saddam Hussein across the barren, rocky, frozen mountains into Turkey. A newsman reported that the parents of children who had died from exposure, did not have enough cloth to wrap the bodies of their dead children for burial. This painting expresses my sadness after hearing that news. No inn, no stable no manger, no swaddling clothes. Joseph digs, Elizabeth helps Mary, a new life has been thwarted. Included are the figures of Justice and Peace, in whom our hope lies. Myth transformed into meaning.
“The object of art is to give life a shape.” – William Shakespeare