What happened with Talequa is that as I worked on this picture from a drawing done years ago, she slowly evolved into the person that I ended up painting. I had no idea where she was going. Here’s my interpretation; someone else might see something entirely different.
The Story: Talequa Johnson, the young girl from West Helena, Arkansas, has grown into a woman and become a high fashion model! An overnight sensation, she’s all the rage and very much in demand, always traveling back and forth from New York, Paris, London, and Milan. However, today she has a day off and is wandering around rummaging through her many thoughts of all her life changes in the last couple years… Although she feels indebted to her business manager, (after all, it was he who discovered her right out of high school), she’s beginning to feel he’s too “old school” for her. Besides, he keeps booking her with that famous designer she detests. The one who’s never satisfied, always upset, and very angry! She’s just walking about, perhaps in London, (or maybe it’s Milan?), but that pale green line behind her is possibly suggesting she’s gone home and that line is perhaps the Mississippi River… Home? … To get her bearings, to get in touch with her roots? … Where lies wisdom? |