The Thief of Childhood

oil on canvas (1989)
44" x 54"
not for sale
This painting deals both with the impact of war on young lives and the impact of abuse. The child is dressed in a ballerina costume, suggesting the life that was interrupted by the violence. The bogey man, in all his grimness has become a reality, and the child is robbed of the fairy-tale fantasies that should have been a part of the innocence and imaginativeness of childhood.
To cope, the senses are anaesthetized.
A portion of this painting was used as the cover on the book A Litany in Time of Plague, an excellent collection of short stories by K. D. Miller, published in 1994 by The Porcupine's Quill, Inc. in Toronto.