Holy Icon

"Awaiting the Newcomers", acrylin on gesso board, Bishop Maxim, 2025

Set against a shimmering old harbor, "Awaiting the Newcomers" captures a tender moment of the immigrant experience. The painting, blending impressionist softness with modernist clarity, portrays new Americans eagerly awaiting loved ones from the Old World.  A distant boat, with its aged rigging, evokes late 19th or early 20th-century transatlantic journeys—long, uncertain, and filled with hope. Figures in the foreground, in period fashion and bold colors, express resilience, longing, and quiet joy.  Their eyes scan the horizon for the ship and the fulfillment of a dream: reunion, new beginnings, and the promise of a new land. The work beautifully evokes the bittersweet melody of belonging, where memory and anticipation converge on the shores of destiny.