Born into a Jewish family in Chicago in the year of Kristallacht, 1938, Phyllis Serota first learned about the Holocaust from a book at age thirteen. Her family had kept silent. It wasn't until 1997 that the Victoria-based painter began to overtly be influenced by the Holocaust in her artwork. Immersing herself in written and visual documentation of the Holocaust, she began to be inspired by photographic imagery to lend "a sense of truthfulness" to her artworks. The following year, her exhibit, Order And Chaos: The Holocaust Paintings of Phyllis Serota, was presented at the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver. "We are all capable of this kind of evil, and unless we realize that, it will continue to happen." Serota later published Painting My Life: A Memoir of Love, Art and Transformation (Sono Nis 2011) with art about her Chicago childhood, family violence, police brutality and echoes of the Holocaust.

[BCBW 2021] Alan Twigg / HolocaustLit