“I have created a series of emotive watercolor portraits depicting the suffering and the terror that pushes a person to leave one’s home and come to the United States," said Kigel, in the news release. "I show men, women, and children, uprooted by war, famine, persecution, national disaster, climate change, corrupt regime, and economic collapse. Each portrait is a testimony documenting the emotions that accompany forced displacement: the suffering and terror, but also the persistent, fragile hope that propels someone to abandon everything familiar in search of safety and dignity. I accompany each portrait with facts on immigration.  By using harmonious colors and background atmosphere, I want the public to value the immigrant people who make up a large part of this country’s labor force, and its intellectual leadership.”

 

Kigel traveled to Japan and China to study Asian brush painting, and later taught at the Round Top Center for the Arts, the Farnsworth Museum, and University of Southern Maine in Portland. Her Maine paintings have been shown in the Arts in the Embassy program in Amman, Jordan. 

 

Kigel is a member if the Sumi-e Society of America and the Union of Maine Visual Arts.

To see her paintings and art journey, visit www.jeankigel.com.

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