myrna balk, artist
artist statement and bio etchings, woodcuts, and monoprints sculpture photographs

Unexpected Journey:
Holocaust Series

railroad
"Railroad Ramp, Birkenau"
Intaglio on copper
23 1/2" x 19 1/2"
showers
"Shower Room, Terezin"
Intaglio (Czech paper with iridescent paint) 8 1/2" x 11" This room was built for Red Cross inspection, but it was never used.
smokestack
"Flowers-Reincarnation"
etching, aquatint, hand colored
8" x 10"
bunkhouse
"Camp with Barbed Wire "
drypoint/monoprint
18" x 24 "
birkenau
"Birkenau"
Monotype stencil 25" x 33"
bunkbeds
"Bunkbeds"
Monotype 24" x 21"

In 1993 I visited the remains of three concentration camps: Terezin in the Czech Republic and Birkenau and Auschwitz in Poland. When I returned to my Boston studio I felt an urgency to depict visually the emotional reaction I’d had. “Unexpected Journey” is the result. Because of the physical vastness and emotional enormity of the Holocaust, I continue to work and rework the same subjects in an effort to approximate the truth of the event.

I feel that the etchings should left unframed because they are not decorations. They should be protected but not enhanced. The etchings are mounted by sandwiching them between plexiglass and cardboard which are just bolted together.

 

©2008
contact Myrna Balk for permission to reprint
June 5, 2008
Contact Myrna Balk
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