Red Handed – Summer 2025
Red Handed, 2025, displayed at Randall Chapel United Church of Christ Headquarters in Chautauqua, NY, Acrylic paint on vinyl printed on fine and commercial presses, 40 x 35 feet.
Photo credit: George Koloski /staff photographer The Chautauqua Daily
Hi Everyone,
My large 40×35- foot floor artwork called, Red Handed, is meant to travel and change in size, shape and configuration. The context changes the meaning of the work. The project was launched at Morton Fine Art in DC. Since then Red Handed has grown in scope and been exhibited widely, including at Culture Summit 2017 in Abu Dhabi, at the Evergreen Museum at John Hopkins University and at Wesley Seminary where their empty fountain in the bleak winter months suggested a mass grave. It has been discussed by veterans, curators and seminarians and reviewed in multiple publications including the Washington Post and The Chautauqua Daily.
This May and July, Red Handed was displayed at both historic Christ Church in Alexandria and at the famous Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, The work was intended to bring awareness to the catastrophic situation in Sudan. It was important to me that message was conveyed in a real world rather than a gallery setting. At both locations information on the current situation in Sudan was provided concurrently with the exhibition. Churches are providing vital support for the people of Sudan and it is important to alert their congregations and others to the tragedy and starvation occurring.
For Red-Handed – Sudan: Don’t Turn Away, at Christ Church visitors were confronted with the art, as well as given information on how to help. On hand were two former U.S. Ambassadors to Sudan, as well as members of the South Sudanese community who were able to tell their personal stories. One young man attending the event had been brought to the United States at sixteen as part of the, “lost boys” initiative, he went on to receive a degree in Petroleum Engineering at U.Penn. With him were his two young sons, as he said, “the age of the boy soldiers in Sudan”. He wanted them to understand his history. I was honored that he saw my work as a conduit to this understanding. The event was sponsored by American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans (AFRECS) and their board members were on hand, offering ways we can all help alleviate real starvation.
For Red-Handed-Sudan: Don’t Turn Away on display in the Randall Chapel United Church of Christ Headquarters, a key location at the Chautauqua Institute, the art was under the feet of parishioners and visitors to the church. It covered the entire space and worship occurred with the art on the floor. It was beautiful to see the installation atmospherically change during a candlelight service and change again during the day as a stained glass window reflected on the floor. Having the art on display in this sacred setting, proved eventually somewhat controversial.... But as an artist I was grateful to have the satisfaction of seeing my vision for the project come alive and utilized in such a meaningful manner.
Warm regards,
Rosemary
Some additional reading on Sudan
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story, by Linda Sue Park
The Washington Post: Starvation or execution: Sudanese under siege face ‘death everywhere’