The 2020 Peace Foundation SACE Art Show award recipient is Elias Raptis for his painting entitled I Too, Like You Had a Face. The theme of his work is the Holocaust and his painting, in mostly greyscale, depicts faceless people in the midst of violence and death. Read more …
Elias was motivated to depict the brutality of the war experience and raise awareness that the devastating tragedy has an enduring effect beyond the event itself. Elias’s practitioner’s statement acknowledges that these crimes against humanity, destroy families and communities and the survivors bear the psychological scars forever.
Elias stays he was inspired by the work of Picasso, in particular the artist’s depiction of the Spanish Civil War in his work Guernica (1937) and the styles of Willem De Kooning, Goya and Eugene Delacroix.
His painting of the faceless people screams out that they had a face, they had a story, they had a life. Elias’s artwork is compassionate and moving, and gives a voice to the faces.
The Peace Foundation highly commends the work as most befitting our 2020 SACE Art Show award.
Image caption: Section from I Too, Like You Had a Face – Elias Raptis