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Although the Germans manufactured color film during WWII, it was only used for the documentation of combat and political propaganda.

But about 20 years ago, some slides mysteriously surfaced that documented Jewish children, women, and men from the Lodz ghetto in Poland just before their transport to a Nazi death camp.

“The photos were astounding in their banality. It was a cloudless day. The sun was shining and the trees were fully leaved. Flowers were in bloom. Even the Jews looked unremarkable — just civilian prisoners in a war zone. But it was the blue sky that seemed to dominate the images.

“In the human mind, patches of blue are forever associated with optimistic visions of the future. But nature is indifferent to the fate of human beings. Life goes on with or without us.”

Mixed media triptych, approximately 46" x 20".

In the Jewish tradition, King Solomon is associated with the words: This too shall pass.

Even the worst genocides leave some survivors. When the killing ends, they walk around in shock and stupor—alone and lost in their own private torment.

“Of all the post-Holocaust images that I have painted, these figures remain foremost in my mind. There are survivors wandering against a burnt landscape. Just a few white lines delineate the shell of the human form.”

Mixed media, approximately 30" x 22".

This artwork responds to the existential dilemma of all survivors of genocide. The figures are set against a sea of blue. There is no indication of historical time, place, or race. Everything is out of context.

Most survivors of contemporary genocides are invisible to both the media and citizens of technologically advanced nations. They bear witness to stories that few want to hear.

“These are displaced and abandoned human beings — lost to the world.”

Mixed media, approximately 18" x 24".

Fanatics of all political and religious denominations see the world in black and white. They think nothing of spilling the warm, red blood of living human beings. Outsiders are wiped out in the name of national purity.

Like the Nazis, most of the people who perpetrated the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia, considered themselves patriots on an important mission.

“This image is about today’s killing fields—ground that should grow crops, not decompose innocent bodies.”

Mixed media, 18" x 24".

Most of the death and destruction of modern warfare comes from above—missiles, bombs, helicopter machine guns, and unmanned drones.

The three human forms in this composition are raising their arms to the sky. Are they being taken prisoner? Shielding their eyes from a fiery explosion? Or just looking up at the sky and praying that God can see and protect them from their fellow man?

Steel is a hard and pitiless metal. It is the most essential material of modern weaponry — metaphor for human ingenuity and inhumanity.

“None of the figures have faces or clothes. They are just exposed flesh. That is the picture of armed conflict in a technological age.”

Mixed media, 18" x 24".

Red is most often associated with danger, anger, blood, and war. It is perhaps the most emotional and distressing of colors.

Bodies burn. Human beings become smoke and ash.

Unlike most of the art in this exhibition, this piece has a vertical orientation rather than a horizontal one. It is tall and narrow; the eye begins at the top painting and moves down towards the bottom panel.

“It is about the descent of man.”

Mixed media triptych, approximately 40" x 12".

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