War through the ages has maintained a stronghold on Humanity. Within its shadow, festering demons take shape, alliances rally, and the surge of unbridled aggression is justified and propagated. Through war we seek to foster some kind of balance, some kind of truth. Ultimately, in victory as in defeat, the dead are buried, the wounded heal, the maimed adjust, the earth recovers, and the image - the image of fear, brutality and betrayal - lingers. Blood Bone Elegy is an allegory on the making of war. The series depicts a battle between the forces of Life and Death, with final images of survival.
James Groleau was born in Lewiston, Maine, in 1960. He is self-taught. His first serious drawings were political posters aimed at discouraging registration for a military draft. Later, after three months of human rights work in Guatemala, he rendered a series of drawings on indigenous life in the highlands for which he received grants from the A. J. Muste Memorial Institute and the Haymarket People's Fund. This work was reproduced in a limited edition book of 300. In 1992 Groleau published his second book "For the Love of Gods," based on a series of drawings on same-sex love. Since 1995 he has devoted his attention and efforts to creating mezzotints. His works have appeared in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. He is currently a member of the California Society of Printmakers and the Bay Printmakers of San Francisco, and is a board member for the Graphic Arts Workshop, a printmaking cooperative. He lives in San Francisco with his partner, writer and activist John Lindsay-Poland.