I wonder what the number
6,000,000
looks like?
6,000,000
looks like?
Each board includes 60,000 hand-painted squares.
I have begun a personal project where I am painting
six million small rectangles
with gouache and a very thin paintbrush.
six million small rectangles
with gouache and a very thin paintbrush.
To be exact, each rectangle is
2 x 6 millimeters
2 x 6 millimeters
A full Page (1 meter x 70 centimeters) contains
60,000 rectangles
60,000 rectangles
To produce the full amount of six million rectangles, I will need to fill
100 Pages
100 Pages
Each Page has taken me
2 months
2 months
The whole project could take almost
20 years
20 years
To date, I have painted almost
300,000 rectangles
Yes, this is an ambitious project. My colleague jokes that I'm a human plotter machine!
As a second generation Holocaust survivor, I feel compelled to do this. I have visited the death camps and stood in a gas chamber, but I could not fathom the numbers of Jews that were exterminated. The Nazis systematically devastated thriving communities, people with hopes and dreams. Somewhere in this mass of people represented is my grandfather, Jenö Glazer, of blessed memory.
The paintings have no patterns and contain no intentional images or representations. This project could have been computerized and completed within a short time, but I am painting each rectangle by hand to individualize and honor each life extinguished – regular people, extraordinary people, tall and short people, skinny and rotund, twins and triplets sometimes too.
I want to show the beauty and color of individual lives and the interwoven fabric of the Jewish communities and cultures. We cannot forget them. We must remember because we are part of it all.
"We are talking about human beings here. Family and friends. We are talking, as well, about an entire culture... They had voices, sang songs, danced, worked hard, laughed, prayed to God, basked in the sun, performed in theatres, worked the farms, ran aimlessly in open fields and worried about the safety and welfare of their children."
– Martin Small, Holocaust Survivor
Page 2 (Not complete): March - April 2023
Day 1: December 16, 2022
Thank you!