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 August
27 - October 5, 2007
Lucy Janjigian
Uprooted
Artist's Statement
 Painting
is my passion.
I enjoy
working thematically in semiabstract style, using bold dramatic colors.
In my art I strive to have a dimension beyond
the aesthetic, where by my imagination the art stimulates a vibrant
communication with viewers through the artistic expressions. Themes in my
paintings are inspired by Bible Study, Social issues, Nature and by my
travels.
 In
my “Uprooted”
series I tell about the persecution of the Armenian people in the first Genocide
of the Twentieth Century, and have illustrated it with powerful paintings. The
Uprooted is a thematic series that benefits from my having grown up in the
Middle East.
 I
was born in a Christian Armenian family in Jerusalem, Palestine, where I
attended British Mission schools. I have diligently continued Bible study
during most of my life. My heritage, environment and religious background make
a definite impact on this series.
 The
first hand experience of my being uprooted was
at the age of fifteen. We had to evacuate our home that was in No Man’s land,
at the termination of the British Mandate and the United Nations partition plan
for
Palestine.
Bullets went through our home. Food was hard to come by, and leaving the house
was a life threatening risk.
 Growing
up I heard stories of survivors who recalled the horrors of rape, desert
marches, hunger, thirst and death as part of the persecution of the Armenian
nation by the Ottoman Turks. We heard my parents’ personal survival stories as well.
 My
first job at the age of eighteen was with the United Nations Relief & Works
Agency (UNRWA). This made me sensitive to the plight of displaced people as I
worked in tented camps among Palestinian refugees in
Jerusalem
and the surrounding cities.
 I
have included paintings of other uprooted peoples. Unfortunately genocide is
universal and persists into the twenty first century.
I would like
my paintings to increase empathy for the victims and to renew our commitments to
peace and justice.
Lucy Janjigian
more of Lucy Janjigian's work may be seen at
http://homepage.mac.com/edlujig/Artists/
 Curator’s
Statement
Injustice, oppression, and
violent conflict have been part of the human condition since before recorded
history. The events known as the Armenian Genocide are but one of too many
instances in which the imperialist dreams of one people became the nightmare of
another. In her series, Uprooted, Lucy Janjigian paints the nightmares of
her people, as told to her by her parents and others who sought refuge from the
destruction of their homeland in 1915.
 At
first glance, the vibrant colors and strong contrasts of these powerful
paintings tease the eye, leading the viewer to expect a cheerful subject.
Immediately, however, it becomes apparent that the reds signify destructive
fires, bomb blasts, and blood; the blues depict a stormy, dangerous sea or
suggest the all-engulfing sadness of knowing that one has lost everything; and
the ochres represent a vast, mountainous desert in which a few poorly-clad
refugees struggle towards an unknown future. Even the lovely, bright vision of
hope in “Dreaming of Freedom” is undercut by the dark, sunken eyes of the woman
who seems to be imprisoned by the crisscrossing bars of a spiky fence.
 Although
each of these paintings has a specific referent in the Armenian experience, they
speak to more universal themes, informed by the artist’s deep, religious faith
and her commitment to helping refugees and homeless people everywhere in the
world. In “Moment of Expulsion,” she evokes the expulsion from Eden as well as
the annihilation of a particular village, as a naked man and woman run cowering
across a fiery wasteland of dead trees, with only a ragged cloth to protect them
from the destructive forces raining down. In “Voyage of Despair” and “Uprooted,”
the overcrowded small boats, tossing on a turbulent sea, suggest both the
disciples who called out to Jesus to calm the storm and the struggles of those
who fled the fall of Saigon in 1975, or any refugees who have risked being lost
at sea as they fled certain death on land
 It
has been said that simply pointing out injustice is the evidence of hope. In
Lucy Janjigian’s paintings, the endless struggle for peace and justice is made
dramatically present. The uprooted people she paints call us all to join her in
working for a world in which no one will be a refugee, in which everyone will
live in safety, justice, and peace.
Deborah Sokolove
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