Inge Norgaard - Social and Political

The Movement of the Water, The Killing of the Innocent,
The Swaying of Grasses, The Selling of an Organ,
The Feeling of the Rainforest, The Terror of Life put on hold.
Changing my emotions and visions into tangible form.

Red Crosses

Red Crosses
The Red Cross symbolize the world over help in crisis.
Here the Red Cross is used in a graphic play, with loose ends, cut edges and symbols popping out,
falling in the wet heat. As a metaphor. No time for finer details.
This series started in 02 to tell about the incredible need for help, repair and mending.
In 05 and 06, I continued the series when the Katrina hurricane happened and the tragedy in Darfur kept unfolding.

Red Crosses

Red Crosses

The Bone People H11" x W24" x D15" 1994

The Bone People and The Forgiving Earth.

I made each bone look like a tiny person. The symbol of a real soul, a real life just tossed away in a pile with lots of others.
No regard for the space they took up as a human, just tossed in a grave like garbage, piled on top of each other.
This did not just happen during the Second World War. This ethnic cleansing and genocide happens as we speak.
And it is so horrendous for the people who have to witness it, that they block it out totally from their memory.
They just forget, as if it never happened. But still, it eats away on the mind and soul and finally must be acknowledged.
How often do we open the paper and read of yet another discovery of a gravesite? Yet it's forgotton.
After you cover the deeds and bodies with dirt, the weeds begin to grow, the leaves from the trees blow over,
and soon the traces of the grave are gone. Flowers bloom, rain falls and people walk on top, not knowing.
Life goes on.

Under Foot H12" x W23" x D20" 1997

Gasoline Can Series

#12 9.25" x 9" 1993

#18 7.75" x 9" 1993

"Always sympathetic to the plight of victims everywhere, Norgaard's idea for these tapestries came in 1993 when fighting in Somalia was raging at the same time that the war in Bosnia escalated. She began collecting old gas cans and when she ran out of used ones, she bought some new ones. Using strips she cut from the cans, Norgaard wove frames of the metal so that the printed messages were visible. Then she wove 22 small tapestries that show the faces of victims. Each face is wounded or contorted or grieving. On is the body of a black woman in a blue dress lying like a rag doll on a bloody patch of ground."
Ann Katzenbach, Port Townsend Leader, Feb. 16, 1994

Life Interrupted

In the spring and summer of 1999, three woman I know were all diagnosed with breast cancer. This was overwhelming. I followed these women, and what this whole experience did to them. Being an artist, I needed to express my experiences too, and in some way to get out of my own system the metaphor of moths. Moths do their work in the dark. You do not really know they are there before damage has been done. This silent work has been going on without you knowing, and now has to be mended. With any life-threatening diagnosis you have to put your life on hold, and, first and foremost, you must deal with this intrusion.

Life Interrupted #1

Life Interrupted #3 14" x 18"

Life Interrupted #6 13.5" x 19"

Life Interrupted #7 29" x 19.5"

Life Interrupted #8 29" x 19.5"

Life Interruped #9. 22" x 35.5" 2001

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