Diva

Last month I entered five portraits of women in a competition at See.Me.com called “S/HE PERSISTED,” celebrating the power and strength of women for this year’s Art Takes Armory 2020 exhibitions, from March 4th to March 26th. On February 26th I received an email notifying me of this:

“After a long and thorough review by the jury panel, your work has been selected to receive a digital feature at the “S/he Persisted…” exhibition. Your entry did not rank in the top ten and was not selected as a prize-winning submission.

One of the images from your submission will be chosen by our curatorial team to be featured digitally on a large TV monitor at the exhibition. The image will be accompanied by a short excerpt from the written section of your submission and the name (for display purposes) you provided us with on the submission form.”

I was thrilled, of course, though I had no idea which of my entries had been chosen. I even briefly thought about flying up to New York for the opening at their event space on Lexington Avenue & 46th Street. COVID-19 put an end to that notion, and, of course, the event has been cancelled, along with almost everything else in New York and the country.

I received an email this weekend confirming that Diva was the painting that had been chosen for the event. This original Diva is on a 20” x 20” canvas, and I am coincidentally painting her again in a much larger format as a commission. Grateful that I can paint amidst all the insanity surrounding our lives right now, I’ll be posting another diva soon…