1. Four White Cars Surrounded Me – watercolor and acrylic on paper; 23 x 33 in.
2. They Shot A Bullet By My Ear – acrylic on paper; 23 in. x 33 in.
3. It Felt Like The Middle Of The Desert – watercolor and ink on paper; 23 x 33 in.
4. The Mother With Her Oldest Son – watercolor and ink on paper; 23 x 33 in.
5. Washing The Oldest Son – watercolor and ebony pencil on paper; 23 x 33 in.
6. The Premonition – watercolor, acrylic and collage on paper; 21 x 14 in.
7. Escape Through Russia – pencil, watercolor and collage on paper; 20 x 12.5 in.
8. Siblings – watercolor on paper; 8.5 x 12 in.
Mary King
The works shown here honor the stories of refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany.
A former interpreter for the U.S Army found it too dangerous to stay in Afghanistan. The family collected all their money to pay a smuggler. The smuggler drove the man with seven others packed into a van and traveled through Russia for two days without stopping to eat or drink. A woman had to leave her eight siblings back in Afghanistan. Although they are middle class, they could be blown up by an IED on the way to their offices. A teacher in Iraq was kidnapped and held for ransom in Iraq, but her family had gold and could pay. The occupants in a small town in Germany were made to dig up corpses. And there are more.
© Mary King