As our current cultural climate threatens to encroach on freedom of choice, expression, sexuality,and equity, my work serves to echo the reality of the American experience, one that is diverse, fluid and multifaceted. My nude and portrait paintings tell the stories of ordinary people from all walks of life paired with a sense of defiance and irreverence for societal norms regarding gendered ideas of behavior, identity, and sexuality. In much of my work I try to subvert relationships between the model and the audience, allowing a dialogue between the two to begin. The composition of each defiant portrait is achieved by finding that place between the humorous and poignant, a kind of intimacy that goes beyond my relationship with the model. These sensations are an important part of my practice. For example, intimacy and a certain tenderness is also at the core of my Oyster still life series. These studies of the inner beauty of such succulent creatures express a certain robust appreciation of the tactile, the feminine and as such my identity as a woman. This is further reflected in my rebellious nude works, and I would ask my viewers to consider that I am a woman painting nude women, and as such my work reflects both the challenge and richness of this experience. It seems that my subjects seem to emerge from my pictures alternately bold and vulnerable and yet always beautiful even in the most unusual ways. This layered intimacy is meant to reflect the diverse nature of the human experience. Such inclusiveness and complexity of intention connects my work to the current of realist work today, a new seditious genre that simultaneously embraces studio painting and engages in questions of identity, race, beauty, and gender. ©2018 Rosa JH Berland Art Historian