The Reaching and Regret

Completed during the Summer Art Intensive at NYU, this piece was inspired by the novel "All Quiet on the Western Front." It is a two-part series, which depicts, first, multiple soldiers' hands reaching for a pack of cigarettes, then depicts the main character, Paul, smoking a cigarette from the pack. In the novel, cigarettes symbolize a break from the terror of war, but when Paul smokes his cigarette, he is reminded of how he got it: by stealing it off of a bloody battlefield.