Mother of Exiles 1986

Robert Indiana made ‘Mother of Exiles’ with flat planes of color, mostly blues and grays, with little to no blending. I can imagine him carefully laying down each colour block, the way one might approach a screen print but with paint. I sympathize with Indiana trying to capture the Statue of Liberty, that iconic figure, so emblematic but also burdened by the weight of expectation. You can almost feel him questioning, ‘How do I make her new? How do I make her mine?’ The title "Mother of Exiles," taken from Emma Lazarus's poem, is layered into the image. It makes me wonder, what did this symbol mean to Lazarus, and how did its meaning shift by the time Indiana was making art? What does it mean now? The painting is not just an image; it's a question, a reflection on what it means to welcome, to offer refuge. Artists riff off each other across time, adding new layers to our understanding of the world. Painting is an ongoing exchange, always questioning, always in motion.