Her Story Painting

This painting was inspired by a photo in the Newspaper. For the past month I could not stop thinking about the beautiful Titi Aynaw - the Jewish Ethiopian woman who was crowned Miss Israel in 2013. She is the first Ethiopian to receive this title. Her photo particularly struck my eye recently given the current climate of civil unrest and mass protests following the Black Lives Matter movement. Titi is committed to protecting the interests of the Ethiopian community of Israel, as she said in her own words, “our integration into Israeli society is slow, but right”. Today, approximately 150,000 Ethiopians live in Israel, following an aerial operation where Ethiopian Jews were transported to Israel and saved from the threat of extremists in their country. In my opinion, the recent events unfolding clearly demonstrate that the contemporary world is disjointed, as a result of the information we are bombarded with each day from competing media outlets. My paintings are born from emotions that pass through my heart – sometimes from a sense that in the midst of this world of media and information, there is a calm eye to the storm. I wanted to share her story through my artwork – and this is how the portrait came to life. I named this painting “Her Story”. This artwork uses oil paint and a collage of photos that I take in my day to day life combined with Newspaper headlines.