Oil, mixed media, resin on wood, 20 x 20", 2020 | "Both [my parents] might be considered children of the Second World War. My father was born and grew up in Minamata...in s. Japan. (That town is...known internationally for a serious mercury poisoning...that critically affected the local fishing community.) My mother grew up ...in s. Denmark, on an island in the Baltic near the German border. Living 50 miles across the bay from Nagasaki, my father witnessed the mushroom cloud left by the atomic bomb dropped there. My mother’s father was German. Living in Denmark, he managed to stay out of the military, but in 1944 German citizens, regardless of country of residence, were called up for service. My mother was 4 when she witnessed her mother receive the news that her father would not be coming home. My father and mother, both probably possessing strong interests in reconciling for themselves what was a youth defined by a fractured world, traveled to and studied in the U.S. ...My Japanese grandfather permitted my father to [attend college] in the U.S. under two conditions: that he return after graduating and ...to not bring home a blue-eyed, blond girl. He broke both conditions. In 1962, my mother–knowing that there was a 50/50 (sic) that the marriage would work out–bought a one-way ticket to Japan. They were married shortly thereafter, at a church, during a typhoon."
