Hope and Memory
04/02/15 
Steven Cavallo
* Studied with Illustrator / Artist Tom Daly
* FGS Gallery - Playing Army Solo Exhibition- Englewood NJ February 2009
* Palisades Park Multimedia Center- Can you Hear Their Voices-Comfort Women Benefit and Art Exhibit-June 2009
* Bergen Performing Arts Center NJ- ChildhoodЎs End Group Exhibition-January 2010
* Ansan International Art Fair- June 2010 Ansan Art Center, South Korea
* Palisades Park Multimedia Center-Come From the Shadows Unveiling of the First U.S. Memorial for Comfort Women. (Plaque Designed by Steve Cavallo) October 2010
* Bergen Performing Arts Center NJ- Comfort Women, Solo Exhibition-October 2010
* Yegam Gallery- We CanЎt Deny Reality-Group Exhibition, Feb 2011 Flushing Queens NY
* Nahrah Gallery-Lamentations Solo Exhibition, Fort Lee NJ November 2011
* Kupferberg Holocaust Center- Come From the Shadows Group Exhibition-Bayside Queens NY August 2011
* Gallery 1 & 9 - Come From the Shadows-Korean Comfort Women Group Exhibit, January 2012 Ridgefield NJ
* Eunnam Museum- There But For Fortune-Solo exhibit in Gwangju South Korea May 2012
* Riverside Gallery-Remembering Beauty Group Exhibit- Hackensasck NJ July 2012
* Western Gallery-Eulogies-Solo Exhibition Los Angeles California-July 2012
* George Mason University, Virginia- Comfort Women: The Untold Story-Group Exhibit November 2012
* Nabi Museum of the Arts-Teaneck NJ-From Many Wounds We Bleed-August 2014
* John Jay College of Criminal Justice-Shiva Gallery- NYC- Of Human Bondage-February 201
In 2007 I began research of the issue of Comfort Women and spent time with these victims who were forced into sexual slavery during WWII. I have traveled both in Korea and the United States with these women, we have eaten together, protested together and spoke side by side at countless venues in their fight for justice and to have their testimonies be heard. I have learned from these victims the methods and effects of human trafficking in 1942 Asia. My newest paintings are focused not only on Comfort Women, but also on Human Trafficking today. The method of abduction has not changed much, since the days of 1942 that the comfort women speak of. The stigmas attached to the victims, the struggles to reenter society, the lies told, the lives destroyed, the families effected.
Although many of todayЎs victims in Asia, where my work with former comfort women took place, have changed from forced sexual slavery by Imperial Japan, Asian women of today have been sold by families, deceived by employers and encouraged by the government to work in cities that are frequented by U.S. soldiers, as hostesses in bars and given language books to learn English and books on Western etiquette. As their stories are told, working as bar hostesses gradually turned into forced prostitution as the bar owners manage to have these girls and young women fall into debt to their bosses.
The stories I portray in these series of watercolors are depicted as twisted bodies, often using the Biblical symbols of crucifixion, scavenger birds and thorns to portray sin, the ultimate humiliation and shame hoisted upon these victims. The color scheme that I tend to use are the colors of bruises, and the human forms are often from several models, not just one, but a cast of models molded into one figure, beautiful features twisted into what mankind has made. My large watercolors are usually multi-panel installations using large sheets of watercolor paper, often pinned together roughly, not limited to square or rectangle boarders, but panels that break the boundaries of traditional paintings. There is nothing pretty about the figures on first sight, however, I strive to convey an underlying beauty to each human figure to portray who they once were, who they might have been and who they dreamed of being. In a multi-panel piece entitled "There but for Fortune" there is a series of watercolor portraits of battered faces on torn and burnt paper, mounted on burlap. "We have no place to rest our feet" comes from a quote by a former comfort women, but is still applicable today in these aging sex workers with no promise for the future, a series of contorted bodies floating in mid-air, not belonging anywhere but drifting through life.
"Identity" shows a woman removing the mask of youth, beauty and servitude and revealing an aging Asian face. "From the Shadows" depicts scarecrow-like images, almost human, but falling short of being regarded as having human feelings and emotions. These paintings are a portrait of man's inhumanity toward man, of greed and destruction. They are paintings of beauty and horror and a crime that has not changed its face throughout the years.
These watercolors have been exhibited in Gwangju, South Korea, In Los Angeles California as well as several galleries and Museums on the East Coast including a spring 2015 exhibit at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC. In the summer and fall of 2015 I will be exhibiting at the Fullerton Museum in California with many of my paintings from the comfort women series on display.
I began as an artist illustrating books from the late 1970s until the end of the 1990s. I had worked on many magazines and newspapers as well, but my favorite jobs were those that were on social issues. I had worked for the NAACP as well as for the March of Dimes International and the Wall Street Journal. In the final years of the 1990s the commercial art business was being dominated by computer art, and I, being a traditional watercolorist decided to leave illustration and focus on my own artwork.
I began doing most of my work on issues such as Immigration, Japanese Internment Camps and the innocent victims of war. It was here that I first heard the term ЎComfort WomenЎ mentioned.
My efforts in the Comfort Women work all stem from a neighbor, who in 1992 mentioned this war crime to me. From there I read a book by Dai Sil Kim Gibson entitled SILENCE BROKEN and was inspired to do some paintings on the subject. In 2009 I visited the House of Sharing with my wife Kyung and attended a Wednesday Protest with several of the Halmonie in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Since then this art project has evolved into a personal struggle to lend my efforts to bringing some peace to these survivors. After meeting several of the Halmonies, my work on the Comfort Women issue became less of an historical matter and more of a matter of the present day. These women were still alive, still suffering and still seeking an apology. I feel that I have the means to speak for them through my art. These 7 years letter, I hope my message is still sounding out loud and clear.
The greatest honor for me as an artist was in 2010 when I had the opportunity to work on and design the first US memorial dedicated to these women. Along with Mayor James Rotundo and the The Korean American Civic Empowerment Group, we unveiled this memorial in October of that year in Palisades Park NJ. Since then, many other memorials have been placed throughout the States as well as in Seoul and continue to be errected to remember the suffering of these women. I am proud to have my painting HOPE AND MEMORY used for the cover of this pamphlet.
* NYC School of Visual Art, 1979 Graduate
* Studied with Illustrator / Artist Tom Daly
* FGS Gallery - Playing Army Solo Exhibition- Englewood NJ February 2009
* Palisades Park Multimedia Center- Can you Hear Their Voices-Comfort Women Benefit and Art Exhibit-June 2009
* Bergen Performing Arts Center NJ- ChildhoodЎs End Group Exhibition-January 2010
* Ansan International Art Fair- June 2010 Ansan Art Center, South Korea
* Palisades Park Multimedia Center-Come From the Shadows Unveiling of the First U.S. Memorial for Comfort Women. (Plaque Designed by Steve Cavallo) October 2010
* Bergen Performing Arts Center NJ- Comfort Women, Solo Exhibition-October 2010
* Yegam Gallery- We CanЎt Deny Reality-Group Exhibition, Feb 2011 Flushing Queens NY
* Nahrah Gallery-Lamentations Solo Exhibition, Fort Lee NJ November 2011
* Kupferberg Holocaust Center- Come From the Shadows Group Exhibition-Bayside Queens NY August 2011
* Gallery 1 & 9 - Come From the Shadows-Korean Comfort Women Group Exhibit, January 2012 Ridgefield NJ
* Eunnam Museum- There But For Fortune-Solo exhibit in Gwangju South Korea May 2012
* Riverside Gallery-Remembering Beauty Group Exhibit- Hackensasck NJ July 2012
* Western Gallery-Eulogies-Solo Exhibition Los Angeles California-July 2012
* George Mason University, Virginia- Comfort Women: The Untold Story-Group Exhibit November 2012
* Nabi Museum of the Arts-Teaneck NJ-From Many Wounds We Bleed-August 2014
* John Jay College of Criminal Justice-Shiva Gallery- NYC- Of Human Bondage-February 201