ARTIST STATEMENT

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting.”  - Ecclesiastes 7:2

How counter-intuitive this seemed, until I was ushered into the house of mourning myself.  I have found this to be true. On August 28, 2017, my dad, Gary Bostrom, died suddenly from a heart attack while riding his bicycle.  Then, on March 30, 2018, his mom, my Nana, as she would say, “graduated” into heaven. These past several months, I have been journeying through the house of mourning, a place of deep sorrow and darkness, a place to struggle with what is lost and what cannot be understood.  All throughout the house of mourning, however, glimmers of the glory of God have countered my sorrow with awe and even joy. The magnitude of His holiness in the face of death and the limitations of our human nature has been a great source of comfort to me. In the house of mourning, the holy God has met my sorrows, wiped my tears, lifted my spirit, and brought new life.  

I love to imagine my Dad and Nana, who both trusted their lives to the saving work of Jesus Christ, in glory, completely satisfied and full of joy in the presence of their Savior.  Though these losses will be carried throughout my lifetime, I can endure them because in the house of mourning, I have been offered a glimpse into the eternal house of feasting where I will one day find a seat.

This image from A Grace Disguised, by Jerry Sittser, greatly influenced my approach to grief and shaped the thoughts and processes of this body of work:  

“The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”  

As I began to paint, I decided to plunge into the darkness to await the morning light of day.  These paintings are the embodiment of deep emotions that cannot be adequately expressed with words.  The body of work wrestles with loss and the tension of promises that seem veiled. It also expresses the experience of sorrow and joy living simultaneously within, as well as the beauty to be found in the glorious nature of God, symbolized throughout by elements of gold.  Bright, saturated colors to pale pastels carry the intensity of emotion and the continual hope for the rising sun. Though this process has been intensely challenging, I am grateful to be able to share my journey with you through this body of work. The sun is rising, and the darkness receding.  I have been carried to the House of Morning.