$29.00

Survivor's Guilt

Original painting

By Timothy Colomer

Between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 50 United States Marine Corps EOD technicians were killed.

Many of them were friends of Timothy Colomer.

For years, Timothy carried the weight of having survived when others did not. Memories of friendships, deployments, shared experiences, laughter, loss, and the men who never came home remained with him.

Survivor's Guilt was Timothy's attempt to paint what carrying that weight felt like.

In the painting, he imagined himself chained inside a cave, surrounded by the ghosts of his dead friends.

They were not monsters.

They were people he loved.

The ghosts represented the memories that remained with him, the time they had shared, and the complicated guilt of continuing forward when so many friends could not.

Later, Timothy attended a program designed to help veterans develop skills for living with the effects of trauma.

During an exercise called the Labyrinth, something changed.

Timothy was able to confront the memories he had carried for years, say goodbye to his friends, and leave behind some of the weight he had been carrying.

The skeletons did not need to remain locked in the closet.

He could remember his friends without remaining chained to them.

When Timothy returned home, he boxed up Survivor's Guilt.

He did not sell it.

He donated the original painting to Boulder Crest, the veterans organization connected to the experience that had helped him begin to let go.

The painting that began as an image of being trapped by memory ultimately became something Timothy himself was able to leave behind.

The friends remained.

The love remained.

But the chains did not have to.

Sometimes moving forward does not mean leaving people behind.

Provenance

The original Survivor's Guilt by Timothy Colomer was donated to Boulder Crest following Timothy's participation in a veteran recovery program and his experience with an exercise known as the Labyrinth.

The painting therefore remains connected to the place and experience that helped transform its meaning for the artist.

Artwork Details

This artwork began as an original painting created by Timothy Colomer as an expression of survivor's guilt following the deaths of fellow Marine Corps EOD technicians during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each print is professionally reproduced using high-quality digital printing to preserve the tonal range, expressive brushwork, texture, and emotional character of the original painting.

Your print is produced as an 8 × 10 inch fine art print on premium archival paper, making it easy to frame and display.