Vietnamese Maria

4×5″ oil on canvas board; this painting is not for sale, but I may have others like it. Please contact me if interested.

Today, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, I think about the kind of young woman that she was. She was deeply imbedded in her Jewish culture and exemplified the best in it in her times. When I try to paint images of Mary for the modern world, I think often of how other cultures picture her. Here is a Vietnamese style madonna, lovely, young, and consecrated. Her face mirrors those of the many young women of Vietnam who give themselves to religious life.