My series of oil paintings entitled “W” Effect on History” features portraits of women who played important roles in shaping history in the fields of art, politics and science; with their attitudes, struggles and actions.

I want people to remember Mercedes Sosa and Joan Baez with their music; Kathe Kollwitz and Camille Claudel with the paintings and sculptures they've created in their painful lives; Anais Nin, Lou Salome, Doris Lessing and Simone de Beauvoir with their enlightening and free writings; Isadora Duncan, who was the first modern dancer; Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren with their taboo-breaking movies, and finally Lee Miller with her extraordinary photography.

These women have left a mark on me, as they have in history. I felt as if I was touching their lives with my paintbrush. And as I touched them, I was influenced by their freedom, the way they knew no boundaries, their obstinacy in doing what they thought was right, their desire to create, to multiply as they create and their enlightening power. Painted with oil on paper, these portraits all contain pieces of me. None was painted with the concern to capture a likeness. They came into existence with the lives and works of the people they depict, and they will continue.