Love Returns: Aphrodite, Nefertiti, and Marilyn

Excavating the rich histories of ancient and contemporary icons

“Others were as physically beautiful as she was, but there was obviously something more in her, something that people saw and recognized in her performance and with which they identified. She had a luminescent quality—a combination of wistfulness, radiance, yearning— that set her apart and yet made everyone wish to be a part of it, to share in the childish naïveté which was at once so shy and yet so vibrant.”

– Lee Strasberg

I made two shifts, one, switching to a yellow sky and two, featuring various mythological figures such as Athena. I seek out women in mythology who reveal women’s power– Athena for justice and the arts, Isis-Tyche for childbirth, Aphrodite for love and fertility, and many more real and imagined historical figures.

My artwork conveys my identity as a woman and artist as I look to history to find memorable women who have been revered, such as the caring mother, the beautiful Queen Nefertiti of Egypt, and other women, like 12th c. St. Hildegarde of Bingen who is memorialized for her visions, learning, and positive political influence. Rather than paint myself, I work to reveal his-toric female figures to balance the countless male portraits painted throughout history. To bring to life the women who hold up half the sky.