ABSTRACT
And a Child Shall Lead Them is an acrylic painting mounted on a 1960s schoolgirl's dress. It is the first piece in which Coleman used a child as his primary subject matter. The central figure is a sickly looking blue-eyed girl with bruised and bloodied knees. She exists in a world of cartoony atrocity that blurs the boundaries between innocence and brutality, a world where naughty girls squeeze little boys' necks and candies are amphetamines. To return to creative living, the fear networks associated with the traumatic episodes need to be reactivated so that unprocessed memories can be addressed, their meanings redefined and gradually integrated or assimilated into the survivor's autobiographical narrative. The use of metaphors and symbolic imagery provide an indirect, non-threatening way of communicating deep and often painful thoughts and experiences that have defied verbal expression but continue to crave recognition.
