This painting “Smoking Heart” is all about glorifying aging women. I create surrealist oil paintings to create illogical scenes that have a narrative to go with them. I paint women that are senior citizens and I take their aging features and glamorize them. I portray older women as powerful and victorious, like warriors striding over the contemporary landscape, set to rule the earth.

​

I am aging and will be a senior citizen soon and I want to see women the way the media refuses to - as powerful and beautiful and glamorized.

 

Why this title?

 

I titled my painting “Smoking Heart” because of Sophia's (pictured at the bottom half of the painting) heart that has been stomped on, punched, kicked and sliced open only to become whole again, steaming with smoke.

 

The fish represents how fluidly she’s moved throughout her lifetime and the wolf is strong and fierce like Sophia. I painted her as if the camera is just above the ground to emphasize her psychological power as she boldly strides down the sidewalk.

​

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

 

Pablo Picasso