Brian Carlson: "Aparecidos (the Appeared)", 2015

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Between 1976 and 1983, somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000 Argentinians “disappeared” in the so-called “National Reorganization Process,” or  what is more commonly known as "the Dirty War." The reigning military junta took people they considered political dissidents, brought them to detention centers, and then tortured and killed them.

The journey to healing from this tragedy has been a long road that has yet to reach its end.  Military officials are still being prosecuted, while memorials to the lost are finally being made.  As it happens, one of the people working on the memorial lives in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin -- Brian Carlson.

"The tour of ESMA,” Carlson said, “was profoundly moving to me. In these spaces, nearly 5000 human beings, following abductions, had been tortured, held in the worst circumstances and then taken to be executed. I haven’t been to Auschwitz, but this is Argentina’s Auschwitz. I promised the disappeared that I would respond with a memorial and return to exhibit it, if possible, in that space.”

Carlson held true to his promise. He began to paint the portraits of the Disappeared and, as the portraits began to fill his studio walls, they created a “garden of memory.” Carlson could see the possibility of what the portraits could do. He entitled his project "Aparecidos (the Appeared)." He wanted to, symbolically, bring back the people who had disappeared -- to ensure that they would not be forgotten, and that their lives may serve to warn people everywhere of what can happen when governments are allowed to oppress freedom.

“The opening of my exhibit at the Museo de Memoria in Rosario,” Carlson says, “was the most incredible experience I have had in 35 years of professional art. To see members of the Madres de la Plaza looking at the faces of their lost ones, wearing their traditional white scarves; to have an overflow, standing-room-only crowd of guests -- most of them relatives of the disappeared, and many relatives of victims I had painted; to be thanked by so many for work that has been an honor for me to do -- is something I can’t describe.”

Aside from some professional development grants and the generosity of Argentinians who have welcomed him into their homes, Carlson does his work without any funding.  He paints every day of the week, but the schedule and finances are not as draining as the emotional aspect of painting the portraits.

“I believe Aparecidos and its mission will spread and contribute to the decades of courageous human rights efforts in the involved countries,” says Carlson. “The message is memory, truth, justice and the sanctity of human life. It’s a critical message.”