I believe that art should tell a story and it should elicit an emotional response in the viewer.  

I was shocked by our government’s decision to separate families at the border and to house children in cages with nothing to sleep on but concrete floors and Mylar blankets.  The children were fed cheap ham and cheese sandwiches, a food with which they were not familiar.

My painting, “Supper at Ursula”,  depicts two Border Patrol agents sharing a meal with an immigrant child outside the Ursula detention center in Mc Allen, Texas.  Ursula was designed to hold more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants. It gained notoriety in 2018 for keeping children in large cages. 

I based my painting on the Bible passage “Supper at Emmaus” (Luke 24:13-35) in which two disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus when they met a stranger.  They invited the stranger to share a meal.  During the supper, the stranger raised his hand to bless their bread. The disciples realized, to their astonishment, that the stranger was, in fact, their resurrected Christ. 

In my painting, the immigrant child is wearing a Mylar blanket and is blessing the meal of ham and cheese sandwiches.  The two border patrol guards react in shock, with one spilling his drink and the other knocking his plate from the table.

The goal of my painting is to show that, if you look closely, you can find a bit of the divine in all of us, including immigrant children. 

 
My models were my grandson, who is of Mexican heritage, as well as my husband and an artist friend.

Swipe below for process photos.