The blue woman is my original portrait in this simplified style with dramatic shadows. I first painted her in the background of another painting. She was just a painting on the wall in the background of another painting and I thought, she deserves her own painting. This is what game out. I was just having fun and letting the canvas pick its own colors. Originally it was going to be just blue and white, but the canvas told me it wanted to be black and red. The African influence is easy to see, but to me the woman is Portuguese not African. Having said that, there is a very strong African influence in Portuguese culture and genetics, both because of its close proximity to northern Africa and because the Moors ruled the country for 500 years from the 8th to the 13th century. It is fascinating to me that I didn’t know any of this when I was creating the painting. I was new to the country, I was still learning the language and I hadn’t yet studied it’s history, but I was living in the midst of all this so the culture was speaking to me through images.

I also think this woman looks a bit like my wife, which was also prescient because I had not yet met her when I painted this, but of course one is going to be attracted to what one thinks is beautiful.