Improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing

Improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing

120 x 80 cm

Oil on linen

2025

I am free like a dove under the biggest sky.

I am a wild thing, a laughing for no reason and smiling up to the sun little warm animal.

Surviving cancer is a miracle, but it is also hard. It calls upon your truest sense of aliveness. You cannot help but answer.

This painting's title is inspired by a a verse from "Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver. Perfectly encapsulating my own human aliveness:

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

At the time of this writing, "Improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing" is available in my Italy Studio.