Woman: Undone

About the Series

Woman: Undone is a series of studies of portraits and paintings of women in a state of being and becoming.

The word undone can mean so many things.

It can mean unfinished, a concept that interests me as I am always and forever meeting people of each and every age on the path of becoming. Becoming an adult. Becoming a caretaker. Becoming one’s self. Becoming a legacy. When I was young, I thought adulthood was a destination. I thought a person arrived and knew all there was to know. Now, solidly in middle age, I see that growing older—at least for me—at least for many artists and writers and creative sorts—is more of an unknowing, an un-destination.

I love to meet a woman in her 30s or her 50s or her 80s or her 90s who knows that she is undone. It does not mean she has done none. It means that there is always a creating, and always an unraveling, in life.

Undone can also mean emotional, raw, in the throes of passion. Unbothered. Uncivilized. Unkempt. Unhinged. Wild and animalistic.

These are all ways of saying a woman defying societal roles and rules, which is just a delightfully juicy thing to witness and embody and capture in paint and in language.

And then there is the idea of undone directly in the painting or the poem. What is it to purposely leave bits and pieces blank? Or graphite? What is it to reveal a sketch? What is it to allow the viewer to build their own story, their own lines, their own imagery, into the artwork at hand? What is it to present just a piece of the story, a piece of the face, a piece of the body, and leave the rest to you?

I wish to dance the edges between finished and unfinished, done and undone. I want to paddle in the mystery of the in-between.

Inquire about commissions or pieces available for sale at alana@ofloveandlight.org. (Shop coming soon.)

A word of transparency: some drawings and paintings are done intuitively, using the imagination; some are done using a sculptural reference; some are done using fair use copyright free images from sources such as Pexels, Unsplash, and the Sktchy app.