Artist's statement:

"These prints were adapted from my most recent painting, 'Gravity and Grace'. The face is reminiscent of one I painted on a hectic street corner bordering Little Armenia and Thai Town in Los Angeles in 2010. After 15 years the original portrait is still there but in a diminished state and missing any of the original halo ornamentation by Retna. The old plaster beneath the mural has been deteriorating over the years and won't last forever so I decided to revisit my old reference photographs that inspired that mural and painted this new image with acrylics. The background floral designs were adapted from a small detail of one of my mother's paintings titled 'Lake Tiberias'. The poinciana flowers and leaves were fairly stylized in my mother's painting, and I then abstracted them even further. As I continue to process my mom's passing, this incorporation of just a tiny bit of her own art carries forth some of her spirit. The title of these prints comes from the writings of radically empathetic French philosopher Simone Weil in the 1940s: 'All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. We must always expect things to happen in conformity with the laws of gravity unless there is supernatural intervention.'

There's some overlap between Weil's outlook and my mother's, with a similar balance of realism, mysticism and devotion to God and beauty. Weil and my mother both strongly believed that beauty can be an expression of goodness: 'The subject of art is sensible and contingent beauty discerned through the network of chance and evil. The beautiful in nature is a union of the sensible impression and of the sense of necessity. Things must be like that (in the first place), and, precisely, they are like that. Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul.... In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there really is the presence of God. There is as it were an incarnation of God in the world and it is indicated by beauty. The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible. Hence all art of the highest order is religious in essence.'

In these times of distress, war, and confusion, then surely beauty, love, and grace are needed more than ever. In my own small way, through art and with seriousness and sincerity, I've tried to do my part."