Yearning to Breathe Free
9" x 12"
Mixed media
2020
This past Friday night my wife and I were praying (virtually) with Temple Beth Israel of Fresno, listening to the words of Rabbi Rick Winer, when I had this idea: combining the grief we have at the words "I Can't Breathe" with the hope in these words from Emma Lazarus' poem, "The New Colossus" – found in its entirety at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
"Yearning to Breathe Free" is made with X-Men comics featuring Bishop – a mutant from the future who is the son of Aboriginal refugees who fled to America, where he was sent to a mutant concentration camp and branded with an "M" over his right eye, used to identify mutants in his era. Which is a lot of backstory, I know.
The words form a tight square on the lower half of a rectangular sheet – I wanted them to feel cramped and in need of release. And the all caps letters in multiple colors? We've seen a lot of that in the streets of America these days, so it's certainly got protest and pride as inspiration as well.
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