OREM — In the painting, there are two boys facing toward a green mountain, but looking nowhere in particular.
One of the boys doesn't seem to be wearing any pants. Both of them have tattered white shirts that look stark against their creamy black skin.
The painting is called, "The Lost Boys" because these young men are wanderers in a strange land.
Brigham Young University student Atem Thuc Aleu painted it because he was one of those boys.
"I always think about the past, I never think about the present," Aleu said of his youth, which he spent fleeing from a civil war in his home country of Sudan to Ethiopia and later to Kenya, where he lived for several years in a refugee camp before coming to Utah.
"Because I don't know what the future holds for me so I just keep thinking about where I've been and the horrible things I've seen. I don't know where I'm going."
But Aleu now knows where he is headed — on a crusade to bring awareness to the plight of more than four million Sudanese forced to flee when a civil war broke out in 1983 between the northern Muslim states and the southern tribal region.
"I say, 'I am in the U.S. so I can do something,' "Aleu said. "In the U.S. anything is possible, and I am here so I must be the one to do something to help."
But Aleu, a tall, upbeat college sophomore with a contagious smile, isn't using persuasion to make his point. Instead, he uses colors and pictures to tell the story of young boys forced to become men because if they don't, they will be killed.
"The worst part is never sleeping," Aleu said — though he later admits that the deaths of his parents and four brothers was the most traumatic for him.
"Even in Kenya, you always worry that someone (will) put a gun to the window and kill you while you are sleeping. So I never sleep."
The first time Aleu felt any relief from his horrific existence was when he purchased some watercolors and began to put his feelings onto paper, he said.
Wanting to share the cathartic outlet, Aleu began teaching art to other refugees.
When he came to Utah in 2001, he brought his paintings with him as a reminder of his past. But when he showed them to the Utah Ad Council, they encouraged him to share them with others.
And in May, the council helped Aleu returned to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where he founded the African Refugee Artists Club.
This time, he brought back paintings and poetry for the sole purpose of sharing them with others. Through Oct. 23, they will adorn the walls of the UVSC Woodbury Gallery at Orem's University Mall.
"They are not the most beautiful (paintings), but they are the most sincere," said museum curator Barbra Wardle. "And the stories that they tell will break your heart. But they're not bitter and that's what's most amazing."
Wardle has struck up a friendship with Aleu, who will also speak at this year's Utah Valley State College Ethics Awareness week, which will focus on "global justice."
But it's not hard to be drawn to Aleu and his unbelievable optimism and unfeigned humility.
All of his answers are poetically phrased in present tense — even when speaking of his youth on the run.
Perhaps it's a sign that Aleu is no longer living in the past, but preparing for the future.
A recent painting of a lone tree glimmering in the Wasatch Mountains suggests that Aleu has finally found his way home.
"Once I got here, everything is OK," he said. "I feel like I can do some good."
If you go. . .
"The Lost Boys of Sudan: The Hidden Holocaust"
UVSC Woodbury Art Museum Exhibit
Sept. 10 - Oct. 23
The UVSC Woodbury Art Museum, located at University Mall in Orem, is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information about the exhibit or any upcoming events at the UVSC Woodbury Art Museum, visit www.uvsc.edu/gallery, or call 426-6199.
E-mail: lwarner@desnews.com