The Empress
Watercolor on paper, 18” x 24”
The Empress is the first painting in a new series inspired by the archetypes of the Tarot. For this piece, I had the privilege of working with my radiant friend Hannah, who graciously posed just three days before giving birth to her first child. Her presence infused the work with a profound immediacy, an embodiment of creation, strength, and nurture in its most human form.
She is depicted in flowing purples and draped in red-orange fabrics, colors chosen to echo both richness and warmth. Her belly, fully visible in a two-piece garment, becomes the heart of the composition, a living symbol of abundance and new beginnings. Behind her, fruit trees rise lush and fertile, offering an environment that mirrors the fecundity of her figure. Adorning her are subtle touches of jewelry, where I’ve tucked twelve small ‘stars’ into the details of a bracelet and earring, a quiet homage to the traditional Tarot imagery.
Watercolor as a medium allowed me to embrace fluidity and depth, letting pigments breathe into the page the way life itself unfolds through layers of patience, chance, and care. This painting, while grounded in the personal moment of Hannah’s motherhood, also reaches toward the universal, the Empress as a timeless archetype of growth, creativity, and harmony with the natural world.
As the beginning of an ongoing Tarot series, The Empress marks a threshold, both for the subject it honors and for my own journey in exploring the cards as vessels of symbolism, story, and transformation.