48” x 60” x 1.5” in. – 122 x 152 x 4.5 cm.
 
                             SOLD
 
This painting “Lest We Forget” was my main painter’s project during the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 
 
After many months of confining myself in my studio, I was trying to find a way to describe and illustrate my emotions regarding this deadly disease. All the uncontrollable events that were  surrounding me and all the unknowns that were to come and how best to put this on canvas… I had arrived at a creativity block.
 
At that time, I knew that a Covid-19 virus had to be part of the painting but my dilemma was how to represents my apprehensions and fears for the future. Not an easy task…  It was during a stroll in downtown Ottawa in April that the inspiration that I needed came together when I passed in front the cenotaph and another veteran’s monument. These words “Lest We Forget”, from the poem by Rudyard Kipling, written over a hundred years ago, was engraved on one of these memorials and it was at that precise moment, that I saw the painting in the back of my mind. That is when I decided to recreate the photo of the single Covid-19 virus that was being broadcast in all medias, but to paint it  on a greyish, dull marble background that represented a granite tombstone for all those that had and would succumb to this disease.

The words “Lest We Forget”, themselves, would be my crying out to all not to forget what the pandemic was doing to humanity and what it already done to our social, medical, financial and mental psyche. In other words, “Not to Forget” and to be ready for the next deadly pandemic that would most likely strike mankind in the not to distant future.