Photo-Encaustic_The Holocaust, Genocide, Politics & Race
You can also use the medium to create a more accurate representation of your own thoughts about a given scene when the shot was taken. For example, in one photo, Looking Out, you’re in a room in Auschwitz, and a window provides a glimpse of the outside world. While no one can experience the horror of those who were imprisoned in the concentration camp, encaustic medium makes it possible to better express your own thoughts and feelings. In this instance, you can use textures & ripped features frozen in wax--and your flat 2D photo becomes a physical representation of your grief for the fallen. The same holds true for Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s Babi Yar; a political protest and memorial poem for the 1941 Babi Yar massacre.
Given the nature of the images in this gallery, I primarily use wax and photo overlays as tools rather than adding color to a photo or using other such techniques. For myself, it seems more appropriate to go this route and to let the photos, and the wax, speak for themselves.
Please note: These works are part of an ongoing project (late 2019 to the present time). A number of the photo-encaustic pieces also draw on my photos that you'll see in other galleries.
Kristallnacht. The underlying photo was taken at Auschwitz. Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was the 1938 pogrom launched by the Nazis against the Jews.
Close up of a section of the prior image.
Nuremberg Laws. A poster used as a visual aid about the laws is overlaid with a photo of brushes taken at Auschwitz. The laws actually provided the Nazis with a 'legal ' framework to strip citizenship, and the attendant rights, from Jews. It was based on Nazi racial theory.
A close up of the prior image.
Another close up.
Yad Vashem. The Hall of Names. A wide shot of Jewish Holocaust victims as portrayed in the Hall. Please note: all the displayed portraits are not captured in this image.
Close up of prior image.
Another close up.
A panel from the Hall of Names. Below the pictures are records, brief biographies of victims-Pages of Testimony-submitted by relatives, friends and others to ensure that each victim's life will not be forgotten.
A panel from the Hall of Names.
A panel from the Hall of Names.
Lines from Primo Levi's If this is a Man. The underlay is a map of the region in Italy where the Fossoli concentration camp is located. Levi and other Italians were housed in Fossoli prior to their deportation to Auschwitz.
Train tracks leading to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Close up of prior image.
Auschwitz; train car.
Looking Out; from a room in Auschwitz
Close up of a section of the prior image.
Part of the Auschwitz entrance sign overlaid with a photo of brushes taken at Auschwitz. A quote from Elie Wiesel's Night crosses the top.
A close up of the prior image.
Auschwitz; barbed wire; overlay of photos.
Auschwitz; brushes confiscated from victims. This photo is used as an overlay in other gallery works.
Treblinka; one of the monuments memorializing the victims murdered at this Nazi killing camp.
Treblinka. One of the many stones carved with the names of the towns and cities from which people were deported and subsequently murdered. And the names go on and on...
to other cities and towns.
Treblinka; memorial stone.
Pinkas Synagogue. The names of Czech Holocaust victims. This is only a small section of the thousands of names memorialized on the synagogue's walls.
Close up of prior image
Terezin-Theresienstadt ghetto. False sinks used to fool a visiting Red Cross delegation. Terezin was portrayed by the Nazi's as a model Jewish town, and the sinks were used as props during the visit.
Terezin; drawings by children. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, an imprisoned artist, secretly taught the children how to draw. Thousands of such drawings, and those by adult artists, were subsequently recovered after Terezin's liberation.
Terezin; names of captive children. Thousands of children and adults were sent from Terezin to the Auschwitz death camp.
Lines from Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s Babi Yar; a political protest and memorial poem about the 1941 Babi Yar massacre.
A close up of the prior work.
Another close up.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; confiscated shoes from Holocaust victims.
Part of Pavel Friedman's poem, The Butterfly; secretly written at Terezin. Friedman later died at Auschwitz.
The photo was taken at an exhibit at the Ghetto Fighters' House Museum, Israel.
Another work/version incorporating part of Pavel Friedman's poem.
A close up of the prior work.
Valley of the Communities at Yad Vashem; Israel. The names of Jewish communities devastated during the Holocaust are memorialized in stone.
A close-up of the prior image.
Kurdistan. A memorial at Amna Suraka Prison. During Saddam Hussein's rule, thousands of political prisoners were sent to this site.
Kurdistan. One of the monuments to those killed during the genocide.
Kurdistan. A memorial for the victims of the Halabja chemical attack during Saddam Hussein's reign. It is considered one of, if not the worst, such attacks launched against a civilian population.
Kurdistan. Prison cell; Amna Suraka Prison.
Yerevan, Armenia. Genocide Memorial. The first of two of the main structures; the second one follows.
Yerevan, Armenia. Genocide Memorial.
A compilation of photos from the Dakota Access pipeline protest. The overlaid text is a page of a treaty that originally granted Native Americans the land upon which the pipeline was routed. This construction took place over 100 years later--without tribal permissions. The copy of the Treaty, used in the overlay, is from the national archives; https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/sioux-treaty/images/sioux-treaty-1.jpg
North Dakota pipeline protest. A close up of the top section.
North Dakota pipeline protest; another close up.
Trail of Tears Commemorative Park in Kentucky; a dream catcher. The park is located on the site of a campground used by the Cherokee during their forced removal from their homelands; thousands died on this march.
