Narrative Paintings

The Allegory of Painting, 2019, oil on canvas, 36×48″

Hello Selection Team!

Stories are important. They help us understand ourselves, our relationships with others, and society at large. I paint stories so that I can connect with people and bring meaning to our lives. The image above is just one example.

Let me explain: last year I was considering painting a nude self-portrait when I saw a painter friend doing her own. When I asked her about it, she warned me not to do it because creeps were making inappropriate comments on her social media. It made me angry to think that as women painters we are still limited by the things we can say!

Soon after I read about 15th Century iconographer Cesare Ripa and his prescriptions for how paintings should look. He wrote that a specific image, the Allegory of Painting, should be of a woman with unkempt hair in the act of painting, wearing a colorful dress and a mask pendant, and she should should be gagged because painting is “mute poetry.”

I was inspired by this! In my painting I have abandoned my nude self-portrait drawing on the wall and taken up painting myself according to Ripa’s prescription. And I am gagged with a bra.

But my confident posture tells you something more – I’m not being censored. Women will continue to speak! We are persistent and we persevere.

I will continue to make narrative paintings! I’m also building a new movement of Narrative Painting by writing about it daily, working with other artists, and showcasing it to the world with my brand narrativepainting.net/.

The Allegory of Facebook, 2017, oil on canvas, 36 x 54″
The Allegory of Climate Change, 2017, oil on canvas, 34 x 46″