Havana

Painting Title: Havana
Artist: Valeria Notarnicola
Date: January 2025
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 60 cm x 40 cm

Gallery Description

A commanding portrait of feminine defiance, Havana pulses with chromatic energy and unapologetic attitude. The subject, rendered in an expressive patchwork of bold color strokes, stares past the viewer with exaggerated lashes and a knowing smirk, her cigarette trailing smoke into a flat, electric pink backdrop.

Her face is a kaleidoscope of hues—turquoise, crimson, ochre, cobalt—layered in painterly gestures that break down the conventions of realism in favor of emotional immediacy. This fractured approach recalls modernist and street-art influences, where identity is assembled not from uniformity, but from vibrant contradiction.

Her platinum hair, smooth and stylized, frames her multi-colored face like a golden halo, while her oversized earrings and shimmering top suggest both glamor and caricature. She is both diva and construct, muse and mirror. The cigarette between her lips becomes a symbol: not of rebellion alone, but of ownership—of space, of image, of story.

Set against a vivid pink void, the figure refuses subtlety. The absence of a defined setting amplifies her presence. She becomes not just a portrait, but an icon—a meditation on beauty, bravado, and the artifice of persona.

Havana is a study in contradictions: brash yet composed, artificial yet sincere. Through color and attitude, the painting asserts that femininity need not explain itself—it can simply exist, boldly, like a flame caught in the moment before it burns out.