I need to admit that I’m not an extensive traveler. I spent most of my life in Old Europe, with comfortable small towns and short travel distances, wherein you will get from Paris to Brussels or from Vienna to Budapest in a couple of hours. But every time I go to my summerhouse outside the small town of Viroqua in south-west Wisconsin, driving on the windy roads through the vast plains, I think about those people, those pioneers and first settlers who dedicated their lives to make these territories livable, who, despite of all odds, built their homes and raise their children with the hope for better future. I want my painting to serve as a tribute to those brave and often unknown people and their effort to make the country prosperous.

Oil pastels on custom-tinted canvas with a floater frame.