When painting things as I see them, landscapes and details come easier to me than people. With this project, I wanted to try something beyond my comfort zone. I struggled to develop a piece I would be happy with. Then I found what I wanted to create: an art piece inspired by love. My idea continued to grow and evolve until I landed on the right subject–a portrait of my grandparents.

Escaping Hungary in 1956 during the Communist takeover, my grandparents settled in Toronto. My grandmother fled with nothing but a sweater and purse and did not return for 12 years. They escaped in a taxicab to the border, then walked to Austria, eventually traveling by ship to Canada.

My grandparents represent the whole human experience, both the good and bad. Two people who loved each other and decided that, despite fear and uncertainty, they wanted a better future. They learned a new language, new customs, found jobs, and worked to raise a large family. The story of my complex, and human grandparents: my grandpa, an engineer with no papers to prove his education, who never became certified in Canada; my grandma-with plans to go to medical school and become a doctor-that never came to be. I see the effects of them in the lives of people around me; my aunt, a neurologist, encouraged by my grandma living vicariously through her. Both the positive and negative can exist in regards to a person, and that to me is love.

Through their individual struggles, difficult beginnings in a new country, and strong perseverance, my grandparents’ experience is deeply human. They are the reason I am here. To be human is to love, and I feel there is no better representation of the many facets of humanity than my grandparents.