Works on Paper: Hell and Water, Hurricane Harvey
Torild Stray
Hell and Water,Hurricane Harvey
charcoal on paper
2017
180 x 165 cm
This work was created back in my studio in Norway after completing the DNA Artist Residency in Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA, in 2017. https://www.dnagallery.com/
When I arrived at the residency, Hurricane Harvey was devastating Texas. The local newspaper greeted me with a stark headline—“HELL AND WATER”—as I checked into my quiet bed-and-breakfast. The contrast was striking: I was surrounded by flowers, ocean light, and a shared barn studio full of artists, while a massive disaster unfolded elsewhere in the country. It was unusual to see so many white Americans portrayed in crisis.
Harvey became a major urban and suburban catastrophe. Floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, and Houston’s aging drainage system only worsened the destruction, causing widespread street flooding.Sewage mixed with rising water, and images of families in crisis filled the news—people navigating their neighborhoods on paddleboards.