Amy Babinec

Truth
acrylic on panel
14 x 20 in.

I use paint to obscure, reveal, combine, and destroy images drawn from historical sources, the current war, and my family history. My current work is influenced by the images from the Iraq War and by Indian eighteenth-century manuscript painting. The intent of this body of work is to cast the Iraq War in terms of the Ramayana, an ancient Hindu epic about Rama, who represents truth, and his war against illusion.

I have placed photographs of Americans and Iraqis in a landscape that combines Indian and American landscape traditions. My studies in medieval and Byzantine art have shown me how pictorial language can create a sense of timelessness, a quality I find also in the compositions and vibrant colors of Indian manuscript painting. The abstract brushwork from modernist landscapes by Fairfield Porter and other modern American artists evoke, for me, the optimistic modernist message of the American government.

© Amy Babinec