La Rosa, oil on canvas 150 x 150 cm
La Rosa is a painting that holds deep meaning for me. La Rosa was made in Italy many years ago, when I had finally found a space to create in after years of life pulling me around by the neck on a wild uncontrollable ride. I had been an expat in Italy for about 10 years, unintentionally reinventing myself... the wife, the mother, the Italian, living on the top of a mountain in the Alps, looking around dazed and confused much of the time.
La Rosa was the first of a series of paintings I made when I found that empty room in an old, old house, with a big fireplace and windows looking out onto a courtyard grown over with jasmine. La Rosa happened when I finally gave in and let go of my need to have any idea what I was doing (a true painter's revelation... letting go and creating with no expectations, no coveted outcome, no reins).
La Rosa was the painting that caught the eye of the man who would become my curator many years later, when he saw it hanging on the wall of that room in the old house that belonged to his distant relative.
La Rosa was a painting I decided not to sell, even though I had many offers, because I gifted it to my mother. She cherished it and always had it within her most intimate realm, her bedroom. She slept with la Rosa and I like to imagine it inhabited her dreams.
La Rosa is dedicated to her.
La Rosa is not available for collection.