Resilience 4

Oil on canvas, 36 × 48 × 1.5 inches, 2024.

Resilience 4 is a large original underwater oil painting depicting a woman swimming upward through deep blue water. Rising bubbles and subtle gradients shift with the changing depth, while light refracts from above across her body and the surrounding space. These fluid distortions capture the sensory atmosphere of the submerged environment.

The figure’s extended posture and the strong vertical composition create a powerful sense of ascent toward the surface and an external source of light. Her movement is deliberate and sustained, suggesting endurance, determination, and the body’s ability to navigate changing conditions.

Part of the Women’s Resistance collection, Resilience 4 continues an ecofeminist investigation into embodiment, atmospheric experience, and the relationship between the human body and shifting ecological systems. The painting considers resilience not as a fixed state, but as an ongoing movement toward light.