Maoke

 

Say You're Sorry

oil / glass on canvas

Maoko means honest child in Japanese. She represents the last of the aging Comfort Women from WW2. These women want the Japanese government to acknowledge the truth, to say they are sorry before the last of them die, for their story to be heard. These women were taken from their villages, used as sex slaves for the soldiers, treated in the most heinous of ways and then left to die. I learned of these women from a young girl performing their story at the Vagina Monologues. The girl gave such a haunting performance of their plight that all I could see were eyes of pain wanting to be heard, hence their face came to life in this canvas. This story is still playing out in current wars, Darfur, Sudan, Congo, Iraq and even here in the US. Women bring life into the world; our humanity shouldn’t be taken as a war prize, NOR should it ever be “taken.”

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