16×20 Oil on Wood Panel, 2025
This painting started out as an exercise to get back into painting more direct portraiture. It is based on a photo of my daughter that I took several years ago. I happened to snap the photo as her fists and her face gathered all their might to create what became a fairly iconic photo that could in fact be the poster for “girl power.”
As I painted, I realized her face, her posture, her stance all created a palpable energy that wasn’t coming through just in the imagery of the child alone, so I added the tangle of line work and brush strokes to create a representation of how I experience the energetics wrapped up in this composition. As the piece came together, it distinctly shifted from a painting exercise to something much more meaningful. Something that felt like medicine. Like an honoring. Like validation of the immense power within us. It felt like hope…the version that is often forged only in supremely difficult times.
A quote has been circulating recently that sums it up perfectly.
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spiders' webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles and the grit of cobblestone in her hair. And she just spat out a tooth as she got back up and went for another go".
16×20 Oil on Wood Panel, 2025
This painting started out as an exercise to get back into painting more direct portraiture. It is based on a photo of my daughter that I took several years ago. I happened to snap the photo as her fists and her face gathered all their might to create what became a fairly iconic photo that could in fact be the poster for “girl power.”
As I painted, I realized her face, her posture, her stance all created a palpable energy that wasn’t coming through just in the imagery of the child alone, so I added the tangle of line work and brush strokes to create a representation of how I experience the energetics wrapped up in this composition. As the piece came together, it distinctly shifted from a painting exercise to something much more meaningful. Something that felt like medicine. Like an honoring. Like validation of the immense power within us. It felt like hope…the version that is often forged only in supremely difficult times.
A quote has been circulating recently that sums it up perfectly.
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spiders' webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles and the grit of cobblestone in her hair. And she just spat out a tooth as she got back up and went for another go".
