"Shedding Blood and Tears in a Time of Hope"

After the shocking and confusing events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan, I started working on a series of flower paintings. The events had triggered recollections of my life as a child in post-war Germany, where I grew up in a culture dominated by memories of death and destruction. I began to think of the cyclical nature of history and the inevitable recurrence of wars. The blooming flowers held by fragile vessels that I painted provided me with a sense of hope; the constant renewal of nature presented a form of peace in a time of bombardment.

In “Shedding Blood and Tears in a Time of Hope” I revisit this former experience anew. In a time where our daily lives are over-saturated with images of horror and violence, we are forced to connect to political events while at the same time numbing to their emotional effects. Fear and devastation become normal, over-represented, while images of hope, peace, or renewal are missing. However, renewal always follows destruction; death is always followed by rebirth. With the horrible images of destruction and death the media provide every day serving as background, I once again turn to nature for hope.

-Sibylle Szaggars 2011