Exhibit at Vancouver gallery looks at lives upended by war
‘Seeking Warmth’ exhibit at Art at the Cave features Vancouver's Sam Marroquin, British artist Daniel Baker and the late Ceija Stojka, a Holocaust survivor
By Monika Spykerman, Columbian staff reporter
Published: March 8, 2025
Sharon Svec of Art at the Cave gallery stands near one of Ceija Stojka’s paintings featured in the “Seeking Warmth” exhibit, which opened Friday. (Photos by Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)
Art at the Cave, a contemporary art gallery in downtown Vancouver, is opening a new exhibit, “Seeking Warmth,” that explores not just the need for physical warmth but also emotional connection, especially in times of war and trauma.
The exhibit features the work of three artists: Vancouver resident Sam Marroquin, British artist Daniel Baker and the late Ceija Stojka (1933-2013), a Romani Holocaust survivor. She was barely 10 when she was first imprisoned. Stojka was held at the Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. She and her mother were liberated in 1945.
Stojka did not begin sharing her experiences with words and paintings until the late 1980s after meeting documentary filmmaker Karin Berger. Stojka’s first art exhibition was in Vienna in 1991. She also wrote three books, performed Roma songs and gave public lectures. In 1992, Austria made Stojka the spokesperson for recognition of the Roma genocide, in which 250,000 to 500,000 Roma were murdered during the Holocaust, or about half the European population of Roma.
Exhibit curator Sharon Svec read Stojka’s memoirs and was struck by her description of how she survived during the freezing winter.
“She tells her mom that she’s cold and her mom says to go and seek warmth among the dead bodies,” Svec said. “She became friends with the dead, essentially. She would adjust a jaw when it dropped, fix their ears when they got crooked. She would talk to them, and they would keep her warm.”
The exhibit includes Stojka’s paintings, sketches, journals and poetry, along with helpful information about their context. Stojka’s original German and Romani words are displayed along with English translations. Many works featured in the exhibit show Stojka’s life among the Romani — joyfully exuberant paintings depicting fields, flowers and family members engaged in daily tasks. Their vivid colors are a stark contrast to the blacks, grays and reds of images from her time in the concentration camps.
Stojka’s story is personal for Svec, whose great-grandmother was Roma. Svec, who described herself as a solitary child, was raised in the rural Midwest and said she was often asked “What are you?” because of her dark complexion.
She started feeling curious about her origins when she was about 6 or 7 years old, in response to a family joke that she was “left on the doorstep by Gypsies.” Svec’s questions led her to her grandfather, who revealed that Svec’s great-grandmother was a Gypsy — a term he used that was common at the time, Svec said, but is now considered pejorative.
“He said, ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of and you should be proud of it,’ ” Svec said. “ ‘However, your life will be more difficult if you share this fact about yourself with people.’ ”
Svec said she took the advice to heart and stayed tight-lipped about her family history throughout most of her life, telling people she was of “mixed European” descent. While working for YWCA Clark County between 2010 and 2020, however, she was inspired by people who took pride in their cultural heritage. Svec realized that she couldn’t be her truest self without sharing the Romani story.
“After I started telling folks about it, people would still say, “Oh, I read a book and there’s a Gypsy character and they steal a baby,’ ” Svec said. “I couldn’t share about it without hearing some sort of stereotypical reference point like that. So I felt like, ‘OK, this is an education problem.’ ”
Education about Romani history is part of the impetus behind the “Seeking Warmth” exhibit, Svec said. Stojka’s art and writings offer a window into Romani culture as well as a record of personal loss. In one journal entry, Stojka references a quote from Eric Fried: “For I cannot think without remembering.” It’s paired with her own: “You cannot go across the street without turning around.”
Recording these thoughts to share with others is an act of hope, said Lorely French, professor of German at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.
French translated Stojka’s book, “The Memoirs of Ceija Stojka: Child Survivor of the Romani Holocaust” into English. French also serves on the board of the Ceija Stojka International Fund and has co-edited a book about Stojka’s art. French visited Stojka at her apartment in Vienna several times from 2003 to 2011, arranged a U.S. show of her artwork in 2009 and helped curate a show in Austria in the summer of 2024 featuring some of Stojka’s pieces.
French said she’s inspired by the fact that Stojka didn’t start writing and making art until middle age. Stojka used words and images as a vehicle “to get these traumatic experiences out of her,” French said, and “was obviously reaching out to other people when she published her works and put her art out on display.”
Hope is actually the most important message of Stojka’s memoirs, French said, because seeking the warmth of human connection is in itself an act of optimism.
A portrait of the late artist Ceija Stojka, a child survivor of the Romani Holocaust who spent time at three concentration camps. Stojka’s paintings and journals are part of the new “Seeking Warmth”
Other artwork
The exhibit’s paintings from Marroquin’s series, “The Madness of War,” which focuses on the conflict in Gaza, might seem despairing rather than optimistic. Like many of Stojka’s paintings, Marroquin’s scenes of destruction, death, confusion and grief are difficult to look at. Marroquin said that while some pieces might challenge viewers, others might offer a measure of solace.
“I’m really hoping that seeing the effects of violence on innocent people can change our perspective of conflict,” said Marroquin, who has a master’s degree in art and graphic design from Eastern Washington University. “Art can be a powerful thing. If it doesn’t change somebody’s perspective, it will open them up to a conversation.”
Marroquin starts with quick sketches using her nondominant hand, giving her work a wobbly, childlike quality — a jarring contrast to the subject matter. Next, she adds acrylic colors and scrawled words, including “run,” “escape,” “ache” and “oppress.” Marroquin said she’s “trying to capture the dust-filled air or the stark mood of survivors.”
Several of her pieces depict journalists, sometimes wounded, reporting on what’s happening while people run through the streets or bomb smoke disperses in the background. Marroquin also shows scenes of protesters demanding an end to the suffering.
“It gives us a feel for what’s going on here at home as opposed to far away. It also shows people taking on power, out protesting, condemning the violence,” Marroquin said. “I hope that people come together and have a louder voice together.”
“Seeking Warmth” also features several pieces by London-based Baker, whose work has been exhibited across Europe. Baker, who is Roma, has a doctorate in Roma aesthetics from London’s Royal College of Art and his work explores Romani visual culture and emphasizes artmaking as social agency.
Baker won’t be in Vancouver for the exhibit but has contributed six wall hangings to the “Seeking Warmth” exhibit which he calls “Emergency Artefacts”: metalized polyethylene emergency blankets crocheted into circles and squares. (One of Baker’s larger “artefacts” is included in the Art Institute of Chicago’s current exhibit, “Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica.”)
“I think that his way of repurposing them is very much in alignment with the Roma aesthetic,” Svec said. “Roma often are in situations where they’re having to repurpose things and do so in such a beautiful and useful way.”
- Spykerman, Monika. " ‘I cannot think without remembering’: Exhibit at Vancouver gallery looks at lives upended by war." The Columbian. The Columbian Publishing Company, Vancouver, WA. March 8, 2025.
