July 2008-May 2010, oil on linen, 30“h x 42“w.
Foregrounded within a barren Arctic landscape are an Inuit couple and a young Ethiopian girl. They are joined to suggest an ideal of the nuclear family in our contemporary era—defined by global interdependency. The composition is based on a photograph by Edward S. Curtis taken at the beginning of the twentieth century as a documentary portrait of Native American populations. This painted reinterpretation introduces the central protagonist in order to adapt the image to reflect our twenty-first century experience of the world.