I began this series inspired by Renaissance anatomical discoveries and the misconceptions that persisted even when evidence contradicted established beliefs. The parallel to contemporary issues around women's reproductive health, particularly here in Kentucky, is something I want to explore. I want to know why dominant narratives can persist even when direct observation contradicts those narratives.

I am fascinated by foundational underpinnings, and most of my serial work begins by excavating, peeling away what we think we know. Each series that I engage in morphs into the next or creates a dialogue with other works while in process in my studio. Working in this way often reveals other truths, and I elaborate on that in a separate journal entry titled Working with Multiplicity.

While the conceptual phase for Mutable was forming, I received an invitation to participate in an exhibition in Lexington, Kentucky where 28 of my contemporaries were asked to reinterpret the Mona Lisa. The concept pushed me to dig further into the work of the Old Masters who loved experimentation. And, while I had interior anatomical pieces and parts on my mind, charcoal lines held a similarly powerful structural basis.

Employing whole body movements, my experimentation is tied directly to gestural mark making. So, I began to sketch out charcoal studies in dance-like fashion, as the backbone of many of these paintings. I dug into Leonardo da Vinci’s draftsmanship for the Mona Lisa (c. 1503-1506) and Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489-1491), as well as Artemisia Gentileschi’s singularly powerful mirrored reflection in Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting or La Pittura (c. 1638-1639) and Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1615-1617). Each unearthing gave me a broader understanding of how artistic authority is constructed and maintained.

First Anatomical Studies

For sometime now, I honed in on the technical mastery of anatomical drawing—understanding bone structure, representations of female reproductive organs, proportions, and the relationship between skeletal and muscular systems. Blue Cohosh continued that journey directly after seeing Andreas Vesalius’ 1543 and 1555 editions of De Humani Corporis Fabrica at the New York Academy of Medicine during the spring of 2025.

Adding to the studio collection of texts, I spent hours moving back and forth between the two-volume 2014 translation published by Karger of Fabrica measuring 18 x 24 inches, the 51 × 62 inch charcoal drawings on paper, and a 44 x 94 inch canvas. The movement captured something essential about direct observation that informed everything that followed. How did Vesalius’ vision of the female form remain mired in the dominant narrative of the time? This kind of questioning informed my archaeological approach.

Linear construction versus the potency of my own findings in the proportions of paint and the transparency between flesh and bone created an almost poetic meditation on mortality and the body's dual nature. The confidence in my line work was building through the Old Masters’ studies, and I could feel Mutable wanting to become more than just an academic exercise.

Color Exploration and Design Development

As I do with each series, moving to the design board changed everything. Adding the blue-green sky and warm earth tones transformed the anatomical study into something atmospheric and timeless. Working with the Renaissance palette I'd established in my charcoal studies (which morphed into oil paintings on paper) - burnt umber, raw umber, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, ultramarine, venetian red, naples yellow, and titanium white—I found colors that could bridge historical authority with contemporary urgency.

*Unearthed Series #3*, 2025, 67” x 58”, framed in Museum Glass and Maple

My ability to perceive how oil paint could vacillate, learned through the archaeological layering process in Lady with an Ermine, enabled Mutable to speak with both classical authority and contemporary relevance.

The rocky terrain began to ground the figure, suggesting themes of endurance and our connection to the earth. Placing the figure in water - specifically, the Kentucky River at the mouth of Clear Creek, my home landscape - saturated the work. This wasn't just a compositional choice; it was conceptual. Water is a source of life, cleansing, and renewal. The amniotic reference. How skeletal elements could emerge from and dissolve into the water created this haunting effect of archaeological remains or evolutionary emergence.

This archaeological metaphor, central to my studies and which I began to think of as Foundations Unearthed, informed how I approached the water setting. Like selectively revealing charcoal foundations beneath oil paint, the water setting allowed skeletal elements to emerge and dissolve, creating a visual dialogue between visible and unseen.

Botanical and Symbolic Layers

As the series evolved, first in an initial image of Blue Cohosh, I realized how plant medicine and women's embodied knowledge create counternarratives to institutional medical authority. This informed how I approached the natural elements in Mutable—not just as background, but as carriers of alternative knowledge systems. Working simultaneously on Artemisia Gentileschi's self-portrait in my Foundations Unearthed series deepened this understanding.

Here was an artist asserting creative agency within patriarchal artistic confines, likely working from a mirrored setting to capture her reflection in the moment of genius. Yet, as a collaborator across time, I still struggle with her outstretched hand gesture. The imagery of another painting titled Judith Slaying Holofernes (c. 1612-1613) burns on the back of my eyelids - there she holds her hand up to the light as if caught in the act by the some intruder. Is my hesitation in completing this painting due to muddled drawing or poor composition, or is it because of some other blinding light?

Environmental and Political Context

Living and working in Kentucky, creating this piece against the backdrop of current legislative restrictions on women's reproductive rights, added urgency to every mark. The classical, reverential treatment of the female form became a statement about dignity and autonomy. The figure gazing into the distance, the skeletal reminder of mortality, the timeless landscape—all of this speaks to endurance in the face of imposed limitations. The Foundations Unearthed keeps showing me that contemporary expression gains power when built upon in a unique collaboration across time.

Completion and Reflection

Mutable successfully combines technical skill with urgent social commentary. The anatomical elements serve the larger artistic concept rather than dominating it. The piece operates on multiple layers—as a beautiful object, historical reference, and contemporary statement. It bridges our past with our present.

The title Mutable captures the central tension I was exploring—how knowledge, understanding, and power structures around women's bodies shift and change, how misconceptions persist, and how truth remains fluid depending on who holds authority. The figure stands both vulnerable and strong, transparent yet solid, historical yet immediate. This investigation parallels what I discovered in Foundations Unearthed: that authentic contemporary expression emerges not from rejecting historical foundations, but from acknowledging them first, then moving beyond them.

*Mutable,* the first in a series of seven large scale paintings for the Anatomia Inversa Series (2025)

Looking Forward

Conceptual Sketches, *Anatomia Inversa Series*, 2025, Charcoal on Canvas, 44 × 94 inches

Mutable established the visual and conceptual vocabulary for the series. The dual-figure composition I created for the second painting in the series articulates generational transfers or a split between public and private understanding of ourselves pre-/post-birth. Melancholia encases the imagery here (references forthcoming in another journal entry). It's too soon to know why, but as the universe answers back on occasion, is it possible that Artemisia pulls me to reveal a mirrored reflection of our present moment truths?

The Making of Mutable