SKETCHBOOK
My subjects are almost exclusively women and children. When I started to sketch for the project, I was trying to see them individually but in the context of their times. When their journeys started as they were deported in years 1939-1941 world was witnessing many atrocities of war. At the same time life was happening. In 1939 Tove Janssson wrote “The Moomins and The Great Flood” (it was not meant to be published, it was a war story that later became first of the well know fairy Moomins series for children), in 1941 in America, Walt Disney created his very successful cartoon for children ‘Dumbo’, Alberto Giacometti famous Swiss sculptor, seeking safety in Switzerland created series of tiny, centimetres tall sculptures (they were on display during his retrospective at Tate modern in 2017, in harsh contrast to his tall skinny, sometimes even monumental figures), one of my favourite London artists Gustav Metzger, a child of a Polish Jewish family from Germany came to Britain with Kindertransport. I felt overwhelmed when reading transcribed interviews. I was trying to take different views, look from different angles, use various media. Sketchbook/scrapbook was a method of recording first impressions and feelings very fast. Catching faded memories of first loves and horrors of the war at the same time was difficult. I used these sketchbooks a lot working on individual pieces later during the project.
