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This painting is important to me because it is a portrait of my daughter. I wanted to capture her personality and her innocence. "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer is a reference in this work. I tried to capture the a similar light and airy feeling in my painting. I am impressed with how Vermeer captured the essence of his subjects in a straightforward, effortless, and understated way. I try to emulate this in my portrait paintings however, I felt that adding a few elements to the background would give the painting more depth and convey a psychological complexity.

I'm blessed with the opportunity to share my Cajal research with my daughter - literally. She has traveled with me to the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, the Instituto Cajal, Madrid, Spain and exhibits, like, the Beautiful Brain. Over the years, I have dedicated cameos of her in my Cajal Inventory series. Here she my drawing of her juxtaposed with a recreation of Cajal's glial cells of the cerebral cortex of a child.

Another "cameo" drawing of my daughter from the Cajal Inventory series. Here she is juxtaposed with my recreation of Cajal's developing neuron drawing, marker and pen on paper.

I have turned to my daughter again for inspiration and added Warhol and Prince into the mix. The source of inspiration was Warhol's famous work of Prince, which was a copyright infringement on Lynn Goldsmith's work. There is no reference to a photograph for this work - just Darcy, color matching, the theme, and Prince's vibe from the Sign o' the Times tours.