Vintage Performers.
This series began with vintage photographs of circus performers and dancers—women who chose movement, spectacle, and a life just beyond the ordinary. Something in them felt familiar to me. As a kid, I was always the one climbing higher, jumping first, gathering the neighborhood kids at the skate bowl to watch me take on a new dare. That instinct to lean toward the wild still lives in me. Painting these performers is a way of meeting them across time—women who understood risk not as recklessness, but as a form of freedom.
Above: Fancy Tricks
48” x 36” Acrylic, spray paint, oil pastel on canvas, 2018
SOLD
51” x 62”, Acrylic on canvas, 2022
Barbie Rae Takes Manhattan is inspired by the women who learn to balance on their own high wire. It’s a tribute to my mother and mother-in-law, who built their lives and careers in spaces that weren’t designed for them, steady in their poise and unapologetically bold. The painting celebrates that rare combination of grace, grit, and self-made ascent.
Barbie Rae takes Manhattan.
51” x 62”, Acrylic on canvas, 2021
A performer and her horse, both at the edge of control—he rears, she surrenders with fearless ease, as if dodging a bullet mid-air. The painting is rendered in quick, instinctive brushstrokes, confident and gestural, capturing motion before it settles. It’s a moment of danger held in perfect poise.
Chevalier.
58” x 61”, Acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 2018
A vintage strongman holds an alligator aloft with one hand, a feat equal parts spectacle and myth. His pose is unwavering, almost serene, while the world around him drips with raw color and motion. The painting captures that old-school bravado—the show of strength that borders on the impossible, delivered with effortless calm.
Strongman.
Bonnie Jean.
36” x 36” Acrylic & spray paint on canvas, 2020