Irene Nedelay (NY)
On the Eve of Apocalypse. Portrait of Great-grandmother Anna. Siberia, 1917

This painting reflects the story of my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather lived in Siberia. They were a wealthy family from the upper class. In 1917, the Russian Revolution took place and the civil war began. The communist Bolsheviks who came to power killed the rich and took away their property. My great-grandmother survived, although she lost all her property. The fate of my great-grandfather is unknown. It was impossible to talk about his disappearance. My great-grandmother’s son hid his origins, because he was afraid that the new authorities would subject him to repression. Great-grandmother Anna was left alone, without money, without a husband and son and without understanding why she was punished like that. In the painting, great-grandmother Anna sits in her favorite lace blouse, with an album of family photos and forget-me-not flowers in her hands as a symbol of a request for us to remember her. On the small table on which her hand rests is a photograph of the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Alexei. The photograph is a symbol of the great-grandmother’s commitment to the old pre-revolutionary order. The fate of the Tsarevich is also tragic. He will be shot with the entire royal family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The background on which the grandmother is depicted is a symbolic image of her native Siberian city as it was before Revolution, on the eve of Apocalypse.