Hinda Avery is putting the finishing touches on the billboard-size painting that has taken over the sparse basement studio in her West Side home for the past several months. The painting depicts six women — Avery’s late mother, her late sister, her late aunt, a friend and her daughter, and the artist — floating in space, clearly enjoying themselves, with halos above their heads and laser guns drawn. Perhaps they’re astronauts, perhaps they’re angels or even religious icons — Avery’s not sure herself, though she does concede they are “no longer of this earth” and represent the 13th and final instalment in a series of comic book-inspired paintings that portray the “Rozen women” as fun-loving, self-assured, resistance fighters out to defeat the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“So you can see my women are smiling, they’re enjoying themselves, they’re confident, they’re absurd. It’s a crazy revenge fantasy,” she says.
Avery’s artistic journey began 10 years ago when the former Women’s Studies professor at the University of B.C. retired and decided to reflect upon and learn more about her family on her mother’s side who had been murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. She travelled to Germany, the Czech Republic and her family’s hometown of Staszow, Poland and was so struck by the monuments and memorial sites she produced a DVD called The Art of Apology. It was a life-changing experience, says Avery, who upon returning home began painting as a way to memorialize and feel connected to the family she had never met. In the first paintings, she inserted herself and her mother, alongside her grandmother and aunt. The paintings were small, sombre, set in concentration camps and depicted Avery and her family as victims waiting to die.
But after a while Avery realized she wasn’t enjoying the process and no longer wanted to view herself and her family as victims. So her paintings began to take on a surreal life of their own. They became bigger and more colourful. She added more women, and portrayed them as grinning, foul-mouthed rebels and super heroines.
They wore dayglo battle fatigues, lingerie, bikinis, sported tattoos and wielded an assortment of weapons, often pointing at Hitler and his henchmen, alongside pulpy comic book-style bubble captions such as “No collateral damage with these sniper rifles. We’ll hit the shithead with surgical precision” and “Der Führer wants to make manure out of us. We’ll prove he’s already full of shit.”
It’s a Nazi revenge fantasy grounded in feminism, says Avery who “loved” Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds when she saw it and likens her own work to giant graphic novels.
“I really like the idea of working with this dark humour, working with a different way of viewing the Holocaust and using laughter and confidence as a weapon,” Avery says.
Not surprisingly, her colourful approach to dealing with the Holocaust is not for everyone.
“They’re very controversial, particularly among the Jewish community because I’m dealing with a very sensitive topic and I’m turning this sensitive topic into black humour,” Avery acknowledges. “So it is difficult for some members of the Jewish community to enjoy my paintings… and that saddens me. It’s not my intent to offend anyone.”
After 10 years and many adventures, Avery says the series and its raucous subjects have run their course. Not only is the final painting the 13th of the series, which Avery says is her lucky number and a lucky number in Judaism, but the Rozen women have reached celestial heights. The accompanying caption also has an air of finality to it: “Der Führer wants to conquer space. We’ll give him a final sendoff.”
Avery says once her painting is complete and part of an exhibit titled “The Resisterrrz” at the Cultch June 23 to July 25, she’s going to focus on her comic strip about an artist struggling with getting shows and growing old — with a sense of humour, of course.
The exhibit’s opening reception takes place June 24, 6 to 8 p.m.
