$29.00

War Dreams

Original painting

By Timothy Colomer

Some experiences are extraordinarily difficult to explain to someone who hasn't lived them.

For Timothy Colomer, one of those experiences was waking from sleep in terror.

During his military service, explosive projectiles and other weapons were sometimes concealed in ordinary materials: rice bags, sacks, pillowcases, and whatever else could disguise something designed to kill.

Years later, those ordinary objects did not always feel ordinary.

Timothy could wake in the middle of the night, roll over, feel the pillow beneath his head, and for an instant believe that he was lying on an explosive.

The bedroom was safe.

The war was over.

But his body did not always know that yet.

War Dreams was painted out of necessity because Timothy wanted to show what he struggled to explain.

The painting depicts a man violently thrashing in bed, caught somewhere between sleep and memory, physically safe in the present while his mind has returned somewhere else entirely.

It was not intended as a universal depiction of PTSD.

It was what this particular experience felt like to Timothy Colomer.

And then someone else saw herself in it.

A woman who had experienced abuse during her own military service connected deeply with War Dreams. The painting opened a conversation between her and Timothy about experiences that were difficult to put into words.

From that conversation came another painting.

Timothy created Battle with Demons specifically for her: not an image of someone trapped by the past, but of a warrior fighting through the demons surrounding her.

What followed belonged to her.

She eventually reconnected with her daughter, overcame alcoholism, rebuilt her life, and remains Timothy's friend today.

War Dreams did not accomplish those things for her.

She did.

But the painting helped begin a conversation.

And perhaps that is one of the things art can do.

Something Timothy painted because he couldn't explain his own experience became a way for another person to begin explaining hers.

Sometimes the painting speaks first.

Provenance

War Dreams occupies an important place in the emotionally driven work of Timothy Colomer.

The painting began as a personal attempt to communicate Timothy's experience of waking from traumatic dreams and ultimately became the work through which another military survivor shared her own experience with him.

That encounter led directly to the creation of Battle with Demons, connecting the two paintings through a real relationship that continues today.

Artwork Details

This artwork began as an original painting created by Timothy Colomer.

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.