Description

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. This painting depicts the relief at the back of Nathan Rapoport’s monument of the final march of the survivors of the Warsaw uprising to their death in Treblinka. Abigail has painted two yahrtzeit candles below the marchers. Their billowing smoke evokes the crematorium chimneys that surrounded the marchers. Below them the candles embrace a brightly coloured peacock with its iridescent feathers arched triumphantly into a fan, a symbol of revelation, resurrection and rebirth.

Abigail is present both as the recording artist and as a soul in the process of gilgul (reincarnation). Above the marchers a series of successive images of her float upwards out of the smoke and away into the universe. A welcoming angel approaches from the left, while the eerie presence of a grinning dybbuk of evil with fiery red hair arises out of the smoke on the right. The artist appears again at the top right-hand corner within a yellow mandala, seated in the meditative lotus position on a magic carpet.