Subway Sonnet #14 | On Women Painting

Another painting celebrating strong women and those that inspire us! The quote at the top is from Coco Channel “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.” If you enlarge the picture to see it full screen you can take a look through the imagery and words and really enjoy the narrative. The words in the background of the painting were etched in with graphite, "You Don't Own Me" as I was listening to Joan Jett's version! This painting is one of my works in the Subway Sonnet series --- The works feel as if they are a collaboration of marks in the same way telephone booths and trains became filled with graffiti and stickers. Eroded pictures on top of images, song lyrics and quotes, graffiti and advertisement stickers - “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls”. Each painting with a particular mantra ranging from “love” to “prosperity. I pay homage to post-war American art and neo-expressionists. Icons from the world’s religions and philosophies, pictures torn from art and fashion magazines and references to lyrics from my favorite bands find their way on my canvas. Affirmation is also found in mantras, spells and the lyrics of popular music and I can close my eyes in the studio, listening to a favorite track and see the energy of the city in my mind’s eye and that pushes me to paint what I feel and to roughly organize the narrative of the painting to fit a particular theme. I work with a mixture of imagery printed with archival ink on acid free tissue paper and affixed to the surface, and thick rich oil paint sticks and oil paint. The entire work is covered with a UV protective gloss varnish. The sides are painted silver and it is ready to hang.