Heart, Break
24 x 36" Mixed media on canvas — collage underpainting with oil paint refinement

Part of the Portraits of Liberation, Transformation and Imagination series, in which community members submit a photograph representing how they are processing this moment in US history.

The reference photograph for this piece was distinguished by its immediacy and rawness — the most visually dramatic submission received for the series. The work was built in two stages: a collage underpainting established the composition, followed by an oil layer that resolved color, light, and surface detail.

The background moves deliberately across the canvas, from dense, shadowed imagery at the top — a raven in flight, architectural and ornamental fragments drawn from Gothic source material — toward organic forms lower and to the right: moth wings, branches, dark florals, a deer emerging at the edge. This gradual shift renders visible a passage from unease toward grounding. The figure herself is composed in direct contrast to this environment, built from florals and saturated color, with gold curls of paint threaded through her hair.

The two-word title reflects a deliberate tension within the piece: the subject's expression and the reflection she submitted alongside it did not align. That apparent contradiction became central to the work — an exploration of how the heart and hitting a breaking point are related. Can we find resilience by remaining open to love in the face of tragedy?