Oil on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

The portraits I paint aim to capture the essence of emotion at a given moment. I am fascinated by the complexities of individuals and their emotions, and the expression of such, often displayed briefly and subtly in the gaze, line of the mouth, spark of the eyes.

My inspiration for the Hollywood Glam collection is the turbulent lives of Old Hollywood’s ‘Golden Girls’, including Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Loretta Young. Each of these women were highly accomplished actresses particularly in the 1930s and 1940s. They each were renowned for their incredible beauty, generally playing the love interest as either an ingénue or femme fatale. They were the epitome of glamour and stardom.

What I have always found interesting and often questioned, is why all photos taken of these starlets look the same. The poses, the styles, all so similar. A carefully generated image of beauty, fit for Hollywood. However, upon researching these women, I found that their lives were fraught with sexual harassment and oppression, tragedy, scandal and violence in all its forms, all the while working hard to maintain the shiny, glamorous image.