Title: "The Scarlet Storm"
Medium: Watercolor paint
Time to complete: 18 hours
Date of completion: 2015
*Includes mat and frame
Despair creates scars that have to be peeled away before healing can happen, but the healing power of a mother's love can perpetuate for generations. It's strong. It's innate. It's impactful. Even in meager conditions, a mother's love can protect a child from hopelessness. Through joy and pain, the love is continuously tested and fortified, to ensure that there is hope. But sometimes that strong barrier of protection can break under pressure. Generations can feel the remnants of the breach in the form of broken homes, broken lives and broken dreams.
Similar to a mother's relationship to a child- the levee was built to protect the city. To keep it safe, so that it could grow, flourish and evolve, yet maintain the richness of it's history.
Although the impact of Hurricane Katrina was felt around the world, it will forever be attached to the city of New Orleans. For the people of Louisiana, the unemotional floodwaters overwhelmed the levees and left stains that can never be removed.
This painting is my interpretation of the unspeakable fate suffered by the Lower Ninth Ward when the Industrial Canal levee broke. The deep scarlet hues represent the brackish water that poured in relentlessly, turning each corner until it found the lowest point. But what if beauty could be found among the stains, within the bruises and imperfections?
Although the event is considered catastrophic, the real tragedy is the generational curse of the broken homes, broken lives and broken dreams. These stains can only be removed by...