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Denial River
Mary Uehara
Digital (Ibis Paint X & Procreate)
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In Perspective
Kasie Siegmund
Oil pastel, 12 x 12 in.
This self-portrait inhabits the haunting composition of Tom Lea’s “2000 Yard Stare,” reimagining shell-shock through the lens of displacement. By placing myself within the frame, I interrogate the role of the bystander, using radical empathy to bridge the distance between my reality and a refugee’s exhaustion.
Set against my birthplace, Mauna Kea, the piece personalizes the tragedy. Seeing my own home as a ruined landscape forces a confrontation with the “luck of geography.” The unblinking gaze serves as a meditation on shared humanity, asking viewers to look at suffering without turning away.
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Out of Sort
Kasie Siegmund
Acrylic, 11 x 10 in.
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Towns Silent Watch
Kasie Siegmund
Acrylic, 12 x 16 in.
Towns’ Silent Watch explores refuge and resilience, capturing a father and son traversing a haunting, gray urban landscape at night. This journey serves as a visual metaphor for the global refugee crisis and the desperate search for peace. Using acrylics with a limited palette, I emphasize the “quiet exhaustion” of the figures. The contrast between deep shadows and soft light highlights their black-clad forms, focusing on the father’s heavy burden of guardianship. Through their tired posture and gripped hands, the piece reveals a poignant truth: hope is carried, not found. It is a tribute to those driven by an unbreakable promise of peace.
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Static Truths
Kasie Siegmund
Watercolor on paper, 16 x 20 in.
Static Truths explores the emotional dissonance of watching global crises through a televised lens. The piece features two young boys holding a television; inside the screen, bright, playful colors mask the reality of the unfolding tragedy in Gaza. Outside this frame, the world bleeds into a colorless void of dust and grief. I transitioned from oil pastels to watercolor to achieve a fluid, vulnerable wash that captures raw human struggle. By stripping away media sensationalism, the work confronts the resilience of innocent lives. It serves as an urgent plea for empathy, transforming passive observation into profound understanding.