FAIRFIELD, CONN.- Three large-scale charcoal drawings by Rick Shaefer, collectively titled Refugee Trilogy, will be shown in a debut exhibition at Fairfield University Art Museum from September 7 - Oct 21, 2016.

"Employing the lexicon of old master painting, Shaefer’s powerful compositions abound with figures and motifs inspired by Rubens and Gericault as he plumbs the expressive capacity of art to address the timeless human tragedy of exile, migration and dislocation.

It is a privilege for the Fairfield University Art Museum to present these recently completed, powerful, compelling, and monumental works to the public for the first time, and to offer during the run of the exhibition an exceptionally rich roster of programs dealing with myriad aspects of the convulsive refugee crisis, from the plight of the migrants themselves to the devastating spoliation and destruction of cultural heritage in the afflicted regions of Iraq and Syria in particular. The exhibition will open on September 7 and run through October 21 and all events are open to the public and free of charge. Information is available on the museum’s website.” – Linda Wolk-Simon, PhD, Frank and Clara Meditz Director and Chief Curator, Fairfield University Art Museum.

"As an artist, the visual vocabulary that instantly came to mind was such paintings as Rubens’ The Last Judgment and The Massacre of the Innocents, Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, Picasso’s Guernica, and Goya’s Disasters of War series, plus all the imagery of vast throngs fleeing war and oppression from Exodus to the partition of India to our own native American “Trail of Tears.” The three works in Refugee Trilogy -- Land Crossing, Water Crossing, and Border Crossing -- arranged in a chronology suggested by the news reports: the mass escape over land, a sea journey, and the chaos of the ultimate clash with other cultures -- distill for me the journeys taken by refugees everywhere, connecting current events with their historical precursors.


In these drawings we are confronted with overwhelming events in a language both familiar and historical. Ideally, this visual language allows us a lens through which to contemplate them. Involuntary migration, expulsion, forced emigration, fugitive status, culture clash, ethnic cleansing, the effects of war on protracted displacement, borders, political disintegration, religious and tribal conflict, international aid, ethnic identity, xenophobia, the meaning of “homeland”, and rights of asylum, are just a few of the myriad of issues encapsulated in the global discourse around Refugees." --Rick Shaefer, 2016