Melissa Chimera

The Borderlands series is a reflection on the mass migrations and separations which prompt so many to leave their homes to undertake harrowing journeys. The artist draws upon her familial connection with the Levant during the Great War. Each family member perished one by one from starvation and the Spanish flu one hundred years ago with the exception of her grandfather’s brother and sister. The painting is peopled with today’s Syrian and South American refugees, many of whom walk similar, fraught paths entangled with Ottoman soldiers of the past and today’s U.S. Border patrol. Although a century apart, history repeats itself today with those moving between war, borders and pandemics. Chimera paints from the point of view of civilians, particularly women and children who suffer the most by nations drawing, demarcating and enforcing boundaries.