Explosions. Devastation. Screaming and crying human beings. Death.

I have not yet found a way to formulate desperate sorrow in sculpture or painting. As only few artists have succeeded in expressing deepest pain and humiliation, it must be a difficult mission. In the long series of graphics about the horrors of war (“Los desastres de la guerra”, 1810-13) the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya use one method: unbending realism combined with a political standpoint. This method demands courage, a quality we are not all endowed with.

Representing sculpture tend to be caricatures, or be interpreted wrongly. This is a problem for me as a responsible creator, not for a free public. If my visitors are made happy by a small clay sculpture of two caroling old women in a sofa, I ought to be satisfied. And it is nice to make others happy, but my intention was to show two young women’s despair.

As I have no opportunity to work with clay in the presence of live models, I used search engines to find press photos showing situations after bomb outrages. In those days (2010) nearly all such photos were taken in the Arab world. The photos made one difference between the sexes clear: women act out their sorrow and despair, often together with other women. Men withdraw and hide their faces.