Road Open Painting

So much has been said about an unprecedented year, and so at the beginning of the pandemic, I began saving the newspapers from 2020. I knew that I might want to comment artistically, on a year like no other. As the disparate impact of the pandemic on communities of color, low wage workers and women began to be known, I was inspired to paint portraits of women mothering during a pandemic. In September 2020, 1.1 million workers dropped out of the labor force, 80% were women. This portrait speaks to the 865,000 women who were forced to drop out of the labor force because of a lack of leadership and national plan, in order to care for children who would not be returning to school. Collaged into the portrait’s background is the feature from the New York Times, Tracking an Outbreak, which has an ever shifting map of the pandemic hot spots in the United States and grounds my subject to her time and place. Sterling has long drawn from the rich history of portrait painting with her work, and here she returns to painting portraits of loved friends, women and children, all living through a year unlike any other. In addition to the portraits, the newspapers were saved and collaged onto panel and acetate for an installation that is a memorial to a year that didn't have to be this way.

Painting:Oil on Found Object

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:24 W x 30 H x 0.1 D in

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