Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 10, 2002 Page B4
When two planes destroyed the World Trade Center Sept. 11, artist Andie Wicherts coped with her emotions by going into her studio and picking up her paintbrush. But her mind was not concentrated only on thoughts of terror and violent death. She pondered where all those lost souls would go.
“I was moved, of course, like anybody else by the events of Sept. 11,” said Wicherts. “I was wondering what would happen with all these people that died.”
She transferred her thoughts into two watercolour paintings.
“People that are old or sick know they’re dying. But this came so suddenly — and suddenly they are faced with an end to this earthly life,” she said.
Wicherts, 72, believes the dead travel into a different dimension, which is expressed in the painting she titled The Light Shall Set You Free, which will hang in the City Hall atrium from Sept. 4 to 18 as part of a Sept. 11 display by the Alberta Society of Artists.
The painting is an explosion of colour, with a collage of candles representing people from around the world who carry their own flame. The collage is contained in a square, representing life on Earth. In the centre is a circle with 911 written inside. The 911 represents an emergency — in this case, Sept. 11 — that abruptly ends life.
“The circle is a different dimension from where they were before, and through the circle any emergency of 911, and through death, people are changed,” Wicherts said.
Once a person enters the circle, he or she can never return.
“You have to go on this journey, wherever it will lead you, and you have to go through the light,” she said.
The other painting, called Through an Emergency Liberation, will hang in the Kensington Fine Art Gallery at 817 17th Ave. S.W.
The show at City Hall next month will feature 20 works from 14 Alberta artists.
“There’s paintings, there’s some sculpture. There’s some wall hangings,” said show co-ordinator and organizer Karin Richter.
Several paintings depict the World Trade Center’s twin towers standing over rubble. Another has firemen with their gear hanging around the fire hall.
The show starts on Sept. 4, but the official opening will take place on Sept. 11, from 5 to 8 p.m. It will share space with a related display by the local U.S. Consulate.
Copyright 2002 CanWest Global
