By Nikki Hauser
GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - With everything going on this year, including racial unrest, the political climate, and the pandemic, one local artist found a way to express how she felt in the best way she knew how.
Cynthia Bickley-Green teaches art education at ECU, but she decided to create something herself during quarantine this year.
Overwhelmed by what she heard on the news, she channeled her emotions into ‘Lamentation’, a work made up of three panels. Each panel represents a different struggle in 2020.
The first features a black square, a tribute to George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement. The second shows a symbol of the coronavirus and represents what we have all collectively gone through during the pandemic. The last image is a globe painting, meant to highlight the adverse effects brought about by climate change.
She expressed each world issue in colorful, abstract brush strokes. She explained that it’s meant to look a little chaotic.
“I’m thinking that we’re just on a rollercoaster,” explained Bickley-Green. “That we’re just rolling through these horrible disasters.”
She said her art will be on display on the billboard for the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh in November. She said the museum commissioned her work and that it took about six weeks to complete.