"Agata" by Sierra Lowe

Sierra Lowe - “Agata”

Oil on panel

This portrait dubbed “Agata” is after a young Italian woman, paused at Ellis Island c. 1910. Photographs, like the one that inspired this painting, were an unofficial side project for a clerk there, and as such, I imagine they were taken at slow or waiting time, when the subjects of the photos may not have yet known if their entry into America would be successful. With these reimagined portraits, it is my goal to celebrate the women in the portraits, as well as the perspective we gain from investigating our not so distant past.

Sierra Lowe is an emerging artist, painting and curating forgotten lives in San Francisco. Her passion for genealogy and her desire to reawaken the past is what drives her to paint colorful portraits of subjects over a century old. She received her BA in Studio Art from Marist College in 2010.