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"My work is a type of proto- evangel," Harden says. "It is like a diagnosis. Jesus in his kindness told people the truth about their real spiritual condition, and they were drawn to him for healing."

Still, some have questioned what could be considered Christian about the horror he depicts. "Some people have a definition of Christianity as 'pretty,' " Harden says. "My work is not intended to be part of the fairy-tale voice." Indeed, Harden and his artwork go a long way from Pleasant Valley, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and six children.

Long fascinated with people in totalitarian states, Harden began his travels after high school with a visit in 1974 to the Soviet Union and other countries behind the Iron Curtain. He returned to Eastern Europe and Poland several times during the 1980s, when the Solidarity labor movement was on the rise. The experiences inspired the bleak but powerful landscapes that characterize his work. "I always recognized the palpable decay in industrial landscapes, which says a lot about our own mortality," Harden says. "That gave way to working with images that describe the life that people live there."

Since 1999, Harden has seen the ravages of war firsthand during numerous trips to Albania and Kosovo, where he has visited refugee camps and village battlegrounds. "I really believe that artists need to be out there, to confront the realities of life and then to react quickly," Harden says. Although conditions were harsh as he visited Kosovar refugee camps in Albania, "I knew I could carry a sketchbook and that something would come out of this."

He sketched portraits and encouraged children in the camps to draw their own pictures with art supplies he provided. He collected nearly 200 drawings from refugees, mostly of war scenes. The children found the process cathartic, he observes. "Picture-making is a potent way of trying to understand and process extreme experiences and emotions. They physically hung on me and clung to me, so that at times I was unable to move my arms to draw with them."

The end result was a record of his sojourn in the form of artifacts, drawings, notes, and travel ephemera. He put many of these elements together with the help of a computer artist to create a series of digital collages of his portraits, photographs and the artwork of Kosovar children.

Three thousand visitors saw this work when it was displayed in Kosovo at the Gallery of Art in Prishtina and the Palace of Culture in Gjakova. He was encouraged by the comments of people who appreciated "that someone knew what they had suffered. … and that the world would know."

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April 2 2001, Vol. 45, No. 5