These current and ongoing mixed media series are executed in gouache, ink, acrylic and textured papers.
The subjects all share one common thread. They were people experiencing various hardships during extremely difficult times.
There are many historical accounts of people living in extreme hardship, in severe lack and of the noble souls who chose to met their needs.
Countless more that history never heard of including those we possibly know from our own experiences.
I chose 1st Century Galille and Judea as the backdrop for these pieces.
The historian, Flavius Josephus recorded the hostility that surrounded the people of the times in his writings. He also mentions Jesus of Nazareth as a healer amongst other detailed references.
Most modern scholars agree on at least one of the accounts Josephus attributes to a historical Jesus, referring to James, the brother of Jesus. “So he (Albinus) assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some others; [or, some of his companions.] (1)
For these particular works, I found that Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament, was an individual who encountered many hopeless and desperate people living in extremely oppressive times.
These works are about those particular people and their experiences, and in a way about others like them, even us, who may have found hope and help from a total stranger.
The Gospel accounts give some details about each one of these people. But, there must have been more.
Was despair overcoming them?
Were they experiencing a deep sense of alienation?
Did they completely abandon the prospect of help and were not even capable of receiving it?
How would they even look and react when that help and hope finally came around?
Rising
“Arise, take up Thy Bed, and Walk.” 2022
Bearing
Simon of Cyrene Carrying Jesus’s Cross 81st Audubon Artists Exhibition, 2023 Online
Seeing
“Go wash in the pool of Siloam.” 81st Audubon Artists Exhibition, 2022 Online
Fulfillment
“The woman said, …When Messiah comes he will tell us all things.” “Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.” 2024
Sorrow
“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking.” 2023
Hearing
“And looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed, and said unto the man, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, Be opened.” 2024
Unwilling
“And Jesus looked round about, and said, ‘Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!'” 2025
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
(1) Book 20 Chapter 9
REF: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-20.html