Mahalia, Rising Star places a contemporary Black British vocalist at the centre of a visual language historically complicit in marginalisation. Drawing on Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics while actively interrupting their gaze, the painting confronts questions of mastery, presence, and cultural memory.

Created in resistance to spectacle, speed, and aesthetic flattening, this work insists on discipline, subjecthood, and the dignity of becoming. It asks the viewer not to consume, but to remain.

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In this new instalment of Letters from the Studio, I open the door to the beginnings of my portrait of Sol Gabetta, a work that listens before it speaks. The first layer meets the canvas through music: the arc of movement, the breath between phrases, the subtle pauses that reveal the life within the performer.

Rooted in four hundred years of artistic lineage, this painting grows from a way of seeing shaped by time, silence, and careful observation. Here, the aim is not likeness alone, but the interior world that precedes it, the emotion before the note, the recognition before the gesture.

I share why every composition is drawn by hand, how sketches give form to fleeting expressions, and how the music itself becomes a collaborator in the process. The episode also touches on Mastering Light & Shadow™, a course created for artists seeking to overcome flatness and reconnect with the discipline of seeing.

• Mastering Light & ShadowTM
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This episode offers a reflection on The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel. While the book powerfully restores many women to the narrative of art history, from Renaissance pioneers to modern visionaries, its final chapters reveal a gap that continues to shape our understanding of women’s contributions today.

The women who uphold and advance the classical craft of painting from life, artists working with discipline, sensitivity, and a profound commitment to the human presence, remain largely unacknowledged. Their omission underscores a persistent hierarchy in contemporary art discourse, one that prizes conceptual innovation while overlooking the mastery that once allowed earlier women artists to claim their place.

Here I examine this paradox and argue for a more complete history: one that embraces the full spectrum of women’s artistic practices across five centuries, including the living lineage of classical realism.

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Welcome back to Brushstrokes of Being, where art meets soul and thought becomes colour. In this episode, ‘Art as Portal or Mirror’, I’m joined by Karen van Hoey Smith (mentor, art director, educator, and curator), whose journey through the art world bridges vision, compassion, and transformation.

Together, we explore the shifting tides of the contemporary art market, the deeper meanings behind creation, and the evolving role of the artist. Karen shares her experience in Hungary, where she curated a poignant exhibition for a charity supporting orphaned children; a project in which art becomes both healing and an offering.

We reflect on a timeless question: Is art truly art, or is it a portal, a token through which the viewer meets themselves? And finally, we ask: Can art ever really “speak for itself”?

You can tune in for an intimate conversation on authenticity, purpose, and the invisible threads that connect the artist, the work, and the world. The charity auction opens on November 13 at 6 PM at the Lena & Roselli Gallery (https://lenaroselligallery.com), where Art Becomes Act and Beauty Meets Meaning.

• Follow Karen https://www.instagram.com/kvhs_creative/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-van-hoey-smith-96001a26/
• Follow me https://instagram.com/karinmerxfineart
• Contact me https://karinmerx.co.uk/contact

Catherine McCormack’s Women in the Picture profoundly reframes how we perceive women in art. From Venus to the Monstrous Woman, McCormack uncovers persistent archetypes that structure our visual culture, revealing how seemingly timeless masterpieces actually participate in shaping desire, power, and representation.

As an art historian and practicing artist, this book resonated deeply with me and inspired my series The Gaze Reclaimed, which celebrates women artists who reclaimed visibility for themselves and their subjects.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction – Changing the way we see
00:12 Why Women in the Picture struck me deeply
00:33 How representation shapes perception
00:48 The roots of The Gaze Reclaimed series
01:13 Building Brushstrokes of Being Studio
02:05 Catherine McCormack’s contribution to art history and feminist critique
03:12 The four archetypes – Venus, Mother, Maidens & Dead Damsels, and Monstrous Women
04:28 Archetypes from the Renaissance to the digital age
05:17 The illusion of liberation in contemporary culture
06:02 Rethinking Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring
07:25 The myth of perfection and the camera obscura
08:42 The female gaze and the reenactment of desire
09:33 Why McCormack’s writing matters today
10:14 “Images are never innocent” – the politics of representation
11:08 Seeing differently: art as transformation

I also share updates on Brushstrokes of Being Studio, where mini-courses on colour theory are currently available. Explore them today or join the waiting list for the full launch this November.

• https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/palettes-mixing-skin-colours/
• https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/colour-harmony-family-temperature-contrast/
• https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/hues-values-chroma/
• https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/the-colour-wheel-explained/
• https://onlineartseducation.co.uk/course/a-brief-history-of-colour-free/
• https://mailchi.mp/a5dd5098f749/waiting-list-brushstrokes-of-being-studion