MEDITATIONS, 1991
Mixed media with acrylic on paper
“Those little paintings were windows that opened up to a bigger space inside me. They were little outlets for all the sadness and anger and frustration.”
These small paintings, often under 2 x 2 feet each, are poignant gestures from a period when Aulerich-Sugai was receiving chemotherapy. Because of his physical weakness, he was unable to work on as large a scale as usual. The work condenses the full spectrum of the artist’s frustration and despair in dynamically painted and layered compositions. Throwing his brush aside, Aulerich-Sugai often used his hands to distribute paint on the paper, as with the first painting in this series, Angry Anger. He continuously expressed how the experience of making art kept him alive. These small paintings were initially an outlet for his feelings; successive works were entreaties for health, life, and peace. In the mandala-like Life Back, an example of the latter, words float against a background of careful, circular brushstrokes in tints and shades of green.