VIRAGO -2010

This was my first solo exhibition in a gallery proper. They put my work in a large window facing a main Streetcar line on Queen St. East in Toronto and it got quite a reaction. This genre of art had not really been carried by fine art galleries in Canada and it was a dramatic departure to what people had been used to seeing, such as landscapes and abstract. Some found the imagery too harsh, including my mother, but I wanted people to be scared of the women I painted. It felt satisfying. For the first time, I had publicly expressed the feminine side of my character that had been smothered and made to feel humiliated. The women in my early work were confrontational, tight lipped and trauma based. They were a manifestation of my repression and while some were simply asserting their freedom, others were violently autocratic.