Liberia has a long and winding history, symbolized by the long and winding dirt road in the painting. When slavery was abolished in the United States, a semi-official group decided that freed slaves and free born descendants of slaves did not fit into what they considered to be the American culture and started to ship the people back to the west coast of Africa. It was a racist premise, and resulted in more death and harm than it did good. Upon arrival, those that survived the trip, they encountered resistance from local tribes and a harsh unforgiving environment they were not accustomed to. Over time, the United States invested heavily in Liberia as a type of Neo-colonialism, which elevated the status of the ex patriots to become ruling elite. The ruling elite of Liberia, former slaves and their descendants, ruled for a very long time, even enslaving local tribes people that were captured which is a bitter irony. After its tumultuous start, Liberia went through many political and military upheavals to this day.
The long and winding road also symbolizes this series of paintings, which has reached about the half way mark, at country #97 or so, depending on how one counts countries. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so much, is that the number of countries in the world is imprecise. Certain disputed territories, unrecognized sovereignty, and unclear borders have made many regions of the world ambiguous or open to interpretation as to who recognizes what. There are even a small independently declared country consisting of one desolate island in the middle of a river that is a disputed area between two other countries. To make the series I went with the Alphabetical list of countries website easily found on the internet, and supplemented with library and Wikipedia research.
World Inspired Landscapes: Liberia, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, January 2024
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