oil on panel, 12" x 9"
This is an alla prima portrait of Waris Dirie, a Somali model and activist who was the subject of the film "Desert Flower." I saw that film some years ago and had nightmares over it. The subject matter was, essentially, female genital mutilation (FGM), a horror that was visited on Waris at the age of 5. As a teenager, she fled her homeland, scraped by in England for a while, and was eventually saved by her beauty, forging a very successful modeling career. Later, she opened up about her early childhood trauma, helping to bring the issue of FGM out into the open. Her bravery is simply staggering.
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