“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Oil Painting 36 x 48 inches
Why do I paint sunsets? I was told by an artist whose opinion I value, that sunset paintings are cheesy. They can be. Sunsets have been painted as often as paintings of the Christ. But for many years the ‘art scene’ repeatdly bandies about a word – relevance. Can a painting of a sunset be relevant in these times? We are bombarded with news and images of violence, human misery and every type of depravity possible. It sometimes seems the only thing the art world considers relevant are images that evokes these darkest sides of humanity.
I am a child of parents directly and indirectly affected by the Holocaust. My father, born in Vienna, came to Canada as a young man via a prisoner of war camp. He was arrested as an ‘Enemy Alien’ in London England During World War II.
It was Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass, Jewish business owners including my father’s father were arrested and taken away. My grandfather was killed by the SS shortly after his arrest. My father’s family then fled to the United States, but my father and a buddy chose to leave for England, believing it was safe. As Hitler closed in on England the British arrested all German and Austrian nationals and placed them in a prison camp on the Isle of Mann. My father was arrested and placed in this camp, Jews and Nazis. The British at that time unfortunately made no distinction.
During the war the prison camp was moved to The Plains of Abraham in Quebec. After years of living under these circumstances, my father was released to sponsors in Windsor, Ontario, but the impact of these experiences left behind scars that tormented my father for the rest of his life.
My Mother was born in Canada, but most of her family remained behind in Poland. During WWII the entire village my mother was from was wiped out. The village no longer can be found on a map. Every one of my mother’s aunts, cousins and grandparents perished in Auschwitz.
Somehow after the war, my mother and father found each other on Seacliff beach in Leamington, married and had 6 children. But they were not equipped to be parents. I grew up in was turbulent, dysfunctional home and was educated at an early age about the evils of humanity. I grew up while the Vietnam War raged. My Mother put a poster up on the Kitchen wall that said, “Make Love Not War”. But sadly, the war also raged inside our home and the sentiments of the poster were lost on all of us.
Nature’s Exquisite Composition
Flying past my childhood to the present, I paint scenes of beauty. I choose not to dwell on the ugliness that I am exceptionally aware that exits, present and past. And I choose to live outside of what is ‘relevant’. I paint and exalt the beauty that surrounds me. My spirituality is in that of praising the beauty and the blessings I witness. My temple is the open sky, a woodland trail, a stream, or endless farm field. My worship is in the process of recreating my representation of nature’s exquisite composition.
With every excursion from my home, I seek out something of beauty. I am fortunate to live in a small town, near farm fields, the Credit River, the Escarpment, Bruce Trail and many lovely vistas. But even on a mundane shopping trip, I stop to study the clouds, or the tracery of branches against the sky.
Painting the sunset is an exercise that endeavours to exalt the greatest wonder of the natural world. It is something that can be shared by anyone who chooses to look up and out at the right moment. It can be fleeting, ethereal, and awe-inspiring. Even the most jaded money manager on Wall Street cannot help but look away from his monitors, for even just a moment, to experience this event. Man cannot create it or defeat it.
There is also the reminder that there are those who are prevented from witnessing the sky either by imprisonment, illness or unfortunate circumstances. But my paintings are also expressions of hope. The incomprehensible divine force that pervades all things. It is a reminder that there is something greater than us.
So I chase the sunset, and try to recapture the impact and experience on my canvas. I wish the viewer of my paintings to be struck by the dazzling luminosity of the sky. The colours I sometimes use are so bright they almost hurt the eye. This effect is created by the contrast of colours. You cannot see the light without the darkness. It is only a few moments later that the subtleties are reviled in the foreground of my painting.
Hopefully, the viewer of my paintings will take with them the quiet of the moment and the lingering imprint of a beautiful image.
Are my sunsets cheesy? Does it matter?
Wind Water Trees 
