Hillel Roman: Welcome Home

Hillel Roman makes monumental charcoal drawings, returning to the primal material with which humanity first created art and to the elemental drives that fueled it. With charcoal born from fire, he illustrates the consequences of the flame that blazes within people.

The drawings originate in stories of warriors who confronted war in different ways. “Burn the ships!” is a phrase attributed to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, who sought to convey to his soldiers that there was no turning back: either advancement or death. An illuminated “Welcome Home” sign, positioned in a train station during World War I, greeted returning soldiers. The sign appeared in a documentary chronicling the life of Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, whose memoir became a bestseller and later a film, only to reveal that he was an impostor with no tribal heritage, who constructed a new narrative for himself, living in perpetual falsehood and complete estrangement from his family and origins.

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