Photography provided by Matthew Sumi
LIGHT/SILENCE PRACTICE And the Colors of the Past
Excerpt from an article by Kadence Englehardt for Daily Edition:
I’m a baby boomer and my parents are of the WWII generation. My father fought and my mother, who was British, was part of the British Royal Navy. All my aunts and uncles at one time or another were involved in some way. What happened with that generation though, was that when they came back from the war, they didn’t really talk about it too much. In particular, my parents didn’t really talk about it very much, obviously for good reason – it was very traumatic. The Baby Boomers are known for drugs, sex and Rock’n’Roll – but we are also the sons and daughters of the WWII Generation; something I don’t think anyone has really looked at too much.
Since both my parents are no longer with us, I decided that I really wanted to find out what was going on: in a historical sense – of course, but I really wanted to trace the steps that my father took. I’ve done a large amount of research, and in that I’m finding the path my father took, the places he fought, and the things he never told me. This series talks about the history, but more importantly explores the silence.
I’m doing these mixed media pieces, which really represents all of that research I’ve done. The Silence series uses a lot of stripes. I’m using a different palette, new inspiration, and various new medias. It’s taking me a lot of time. Some of the paintings have to be done multiple times to get it right. I’m incorporating my familiar landscapes, but those are coming from imagined places and events or literal descriptions from soldiers who participated. It’s huge and vastly different. I didn’t think it was going to be easy, and I knew it would be a different scope than I’m used to, but I’m definitely still learning. I go back and forth, but I feel like I’m really starting to hit my stride.
