Enigmatic Allure

There are certain stories I’ve never told out loud, but they come forward in color. Enigmatic Allure is one of them—painted in the hush between midnight and memory, when truth slips on silk and dreams become defiant. This is a self-portrait, yes—but not of the woman I see in the mirror. This is the woman I am in the marrow: layered, luminous, and ancestral. In painting her, I wasn’t trying to capture perfection—I was calling forth spirit, mystery, survival. Her face is sculpted in bold strokes of cobalt, crimson, and sacred white light. She rises from the deep not to explain herself, but to be felt—fully, truthfully, soul-first.

When I paint, I am translating the language of a world that rarely sees Black women as worthy of wonder. I use my palette knife and brushes like protest and praise. In this piece, the swirling textures of her hair echo the ocean’s energy—perhaps my mother’s spirit moving through me, reminding me who I am and where I come from. Her eye, my eye, holds a question you can’t answer but won’t forget. The curve beside her cheek is both adornment and rite. It says: come closer—but only if you honor the depth you find. I offer beauty, but never at the cost of truth. Like the sea. Like justice. Like love, when it’s rooted.

Enigmatic Allure lives in the realm between beauty and resistance, between sensuality and storm. I wanted her to feel like she belonged to another realm—but still speak to the ordinary street corner, the kitchen table, the political podium, the silent cry in the middle of a sleepless night. She is myth and memory, vision and vessel. She is the woman who didn’t vanish when the world tried to reduce her. She stayed. She summoned herself onto canvas. And she chose radiance, even in solitude. Now she’s looking back at you—not asking for permission, just presence.

Poem: Enigmatic Allure

She leans from the covenant
of indigo dreaming—
a face not drawn to please,
but to reveal
the marrow-song
of women who no longer
explain themselves.

Lashes like river reeds,
eyes rich with knowing—
questions wrapped in light,
answers painted in silence.
She watches not for rescue,
but for reverence.
Yours, maybe.

The red near her mouth
is not lipstick.
It is memory—
embered and aching—
the afterglow of what remains
after too many
half-spoken goodbyes
and not enough justice.

She wears blue like breath,
like salt passed down.
It moves around her
like her mother’s voice—
a soft thunder that says:
“Stay renewed and graceful,
like African Silver Willow trees,
reaching toward the sky.”

She is painted in refusal—
not of love,
but of reduction.
The curl beside her cheek
is an offering, a sigil,
drawn in praise
of what remains unbroken.

In her silence,
there is a whole language.
She names the unnamed,
applauds the altruistic ones,
sings to the displaced,
whispers to the weary,
and reminds the unseen:
they too are art—
during, and even after the pain.

And so she stays—
a sentinel of shadowlight,
not asking to be solved,
only seen.
Not soft, not guarded—
but sacred
in her unfolding.

Giclée Stretched Canvas Print:Giclee print on museum quality 410gsm polycotton canvas. Stretched on 1.5 inch pine wood and back wire. Ready to hang
Acrylic Print:1/8 (3mm) thick Digital grade Acrylic with back floating Frame of 1 inch thick. Ready to hang
Wood Print:5mm Birch Wood with back floating Frame of 1 inch thick. Ready to hang
Brushed Metal Print:3mm Brushed Metal Print with back floating Frame of 1 inch thick. Ready to hang
HD Sublimation Metal Print:High Gloss Sublimation on Chromalux Panel with back floating Frame of 1 inch thick. Ready to hang
Puzzle Print:High-quality varnished Puzzle print with Retail box
Giclée Rolled Canvas Print:Giclee print on museum quality 410gsm polycotton canvas
Giclée Poster Satin Photo Paper Print:Giclee print on Resin coated Satin Photo Paper 240gsm
Giclée Fine Art Matte Paper Print:Giclee print on Fine Art Matte Paper
Framed Print:Mounted with Plexiglass and Frame. Ready to hang.