Exodus I
36″ x 42″ oil/canvas
This painting was one of my first to focus on refugees. On March 16, 1988 during the closing days of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurdish city of Halaja. It was winter. Pictures in the news showed people trailing across the cold mountains. The barren land reminded me of the biblical stories of Moses in the wilderness. I could do nothing to help, so I started to paint.
“It (art) doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful.” -Duane Hanson