24 1/2 by 15 inches, Watercolor
On the morning of March 27, 2023 the Lord took away three children and three adults in a
heartbreaking and soul-crushing way. One of the nine year old victims was the daughter of my mother’s best friend, and a loving soul that our close friends and family felt the warmth of whenever she was near. The painting I chose to submit depicts a scene from her celebration of life which my family and I tearfully attended. Job 1:21 says, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised,” this is a verse that has taken on a deeper meaning for me in the past year. As a senior at the school I attend, we choose a theme to guide the creation of our pieces completed throughout the year. My theme, comfort in the midst of sorrow, centered around my own personal grief as well as a community’s grief and events that affect them to this day. The composition of my painting includes thousands of God’s people crammed in and around the sanctuary singing “We Will Feast in The House of Zion.” Through our tears, we harmoniously declared we would one day be feasting with Hallie and our Father in Heaven. We as humans are uneven and imperfect, yet we are invited to come as we are and know the presence of the Lord in the context of His kingdom. I attempted to portray this imperfection through the use of messy, obvious brushstrokes and water movement with an overall sense of unity of the crowd. One of the clearest objects in my painting is the cross, reminding the viewer to keep our eyes on Christ and the comfort that we can seek in Him even in the most heartbreaking of times. I am sure that many of my techniques and artistic choices in this painting were inspired by artists I have learned about or looked up to, however I did not draw any inspiration from specific artists for this piece. As an artist and aspiring professional artist, I believe that art should depict heavy emotions such as these; art helps the creator and the viewer process and reflect on his or her emotions. True art reflects the True Artist, whether we are pointed to Him through the most heartbreaking grief or the most jubilant joy. I poured much of my time and emotion into this piece,