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Artist: Anna Bialobroda
Date:
1988
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: Triptych: 213.4 x 152.4 cm, 218.4 x 497.8 cm, and 213.4 x 492.7 cm
Event: Holocaust
Motif:
Remembrance
This triptych was inspired by the artist's visit to Poland in 1989, her first since leaving the country of her birth as an infant. The first panel, painted in lush colors, shows an open door that reveals an essentially vacant room, with the exception of two suitcases and a duffle bag. One of the suitcases on the floor is entirely empty, and the other suitcase and duffle bag are only partially filled, leading the viewer to believe that the process of packing has somehow been interrupted--that the people have vanished, or even that they were taken away. The filled suitcase standing just outside the vacant room reinforces this feeling. In the two remaining panels of the work, the room appears again, but this time in black and white, as if in a dream. The suitcases and the room now float in space, above an "Exit" sign. The two panels are mirror images of each other and their placement recalls pages of a book that have been pried open.
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