China Pattern

With "China Pattern," Deborah Oropallo pays homage to the more than 10,000 Chinese laborers whose unremitting perseverance and courage permitted the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869. In particular, this work commemorates the workers who lost their lives in the brutal winter of 1866, near the Donner Summit in the Sierra Nevada.  

From a distance, the painting's geometric patterns read as abstractions.  However, as one approaches the canvas, the details of the train tracks slowly emerge. These contrast against the white background, which evokes the unforgiving Sierra snow. The painting's repetition of countless railroad-ties reflects the seemingly endless task of the railroad workers. While excavating thirteen mountain-pass tunnels, the workers could advance only eight to twelve inches per day. By contrast, in summer and on flat ground, they were able to lay as many as ten miles of track in a single day.

The Chinese word for "train" (literally "fire cart") is repeated behind thirteen rows of tracks, connoting the thirteen tunnels completed by the railroad workers.  At the bottom of the canvas, the tracks slowly fade into red, a color of great symbolic significance in Chinese history - both ancient and modern - and a reminder of the countless deaths that occurred over the course of this astounding feat of engineering that linked the nation together.