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| Anne Bisone Feast 34" x 48" Oil, alkyd, marble dust on canvas | Installed view | ||
| Ethnic tensions and territorial disputes are issues that never seem to resolve themselves. People of all nations seem to have been pushed and shoved around this planet since the beginning of human history and we continue to see massive ethnic refugee crises. Within the first week of the 1999 Kosovo War, the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Serbians forced 300,000 Kosovo Albanians to flee into neighboring Albania and Macedonia, with many thousands more displaced within Kosovo. By April 1999, The United Nations was reporting that 850,000 people-the vast majority of them Albanians- had fled their homes. | |||
| Seeing images of this migration and the sprawling makeshift refugee camps left me feeling sad, angry and helpless. I was overtaken by these unbelievable images and began to wonder what it would be like if forced resettlement happened within the United States in my lifetime. It wasn't too long after this point that we all witnessed thousands of New Yorkers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, fleeing the events of September 11, 2001. The powerful images of mass migrating populations resonates with me. | |||
| This painting, Feast, was a direct response to what I had seen and felt as the war in Kosovo continued. The repetition and layering of dead flower heads embedded in white 'seed-forms' is a visual representation of dispersed peoples whose fate is unknown, yet holds the potential for hope and rebirth. By themselves, these forms feel quite static, however, as a layered group there is a suggestion of movement from one side of the canvas to the other. The destination is unclear and one may feel as if they are going nowhere. The painting offers no goal or final destination, but rather, attempts to depict this state of limbo, where the future is anything but clear. | |||