Artist Statement: My Long Journey of Lament
My painting is in response to a journey that I have been on these past several months, a journey of lament. This journey has resulted in my traversing several uncharted, dusty roads. On one of those roads, called Witness, I watched our country’s collective apathy and unwillingness to acknowledge its sin of racism. On a turnout in that road, called Acknowledgement, I became aware of our refusal to repent from this sin. Turning down another road, called Realization, I began to wonder if our country would ever completely realize its dream. A dream where all people experience equality and those “certain unalienable rights” that were promised.
I am very road weary. I remember that I have been on my journey for a long time. The usual tools one would use to chart a course are absent from me. No maps, GPS, or Northern Star. I will trust my journey to the two unchangeable navigators available, faith and prayer. I ask my traveling companion, who is always with me, “Where will this Journey of Lament end?” He promises me that my journey will end in a place He named New Heaven and New Earth. This promise is my destination. At this final destination that He has prepared for me, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
