watercolor, acrylic; 20×16″
“Have you ever been in an empty library? Seen the molding that can’t be disguised as anything else? It’s like walking into your child’s bedroom after they’ve moved onto college. Only with the knowledge that they’ll never come home to you. I painted a person wearing PPE, more specifically a gas mask climbing up burning book shelves. The person walks into a library and sets it ablaze, burning away decades of history and hundreds of people’s work. They’re climbing their way out as white smoke fills the room and black smoke fills their mask. The knowledge of this library is burning away, but it wants to take you with it. My piece wants to showcase the heartbreak that comes with each and every book lost to history, the pile of grief that stacks higher each time someone’s words are snuffed out and buried.”
ARTIST BIO: August BERRYMAN is a grade 12 strudent at Butler Tech School of Art studying art under art teacher Mary Catherine Ruby.