Mei-Ying Dell'Aquila, Artist

This painting represents an ideal world where two cultures coexist in a harmonious balance, as shown here with Renaissance and Chinese colors and styles. Complementary colors are paired harmoniously, such as reds and greens and yellows with purples.

The central figure is Lady Liberty, and at her feet is a crack in the floor, which represents the flaws of the old system. She is seated here to obstruct the path of damage, and light emanates from her, allowing her to create her world with an open mind. Her chest appears to glow with a spiritual light.

Stone dragons emerge form the throne upon which she sits, coming alive in hue and forming the shape of a heart. Their formation signifies a need to accept other cultures and to have an open mind, and an open heart. A sense of place and time has become compressed within these figures, a call to shape our world into a better place.

The Liberty is the Greek Goddess of Memory-Mnemosyne, The ambient light represents the chaos of the battle field. Liberty is wrestling with time and trying to push time backward. This is shown through the wrinkle on the base of the needle. The needle of the clock directs the viewer's eye to the crack on the clock, which symbolize the imperfections of the system.

I use the twelfth Chinese Zodiac animal as the clock's face of time. Each animal represents a year in a cycle of twelve. The snake whose tail lies across the clock face, is grabbing Liberty's leg. The snake's transparency, is a metaphor of the battle Liberty has to deal with.

The twisted shadow of the needle pointing at the dragon, a noble symbol in Chinese culture, represents the effort of the Liberty, now points to a perfect world.

In Chinese mythology it is said that after the world were created, the sky started to crack and leak, flooding the human world. Nv Wa, the story tells us, mended the broken sky, stopped the flood and saved the human world.

Needle and thread are still used to mend cloth. It’s often considered mundane woman’s work with little glamour or appreciation. But, here the Liberty / Nv Wa use the small tools to evoke a grand change. In the painting, both mythical and human worlds are present.

The human world has a big crack on the top. The crack reveals the blue sky and natural clouds of today's world. The heavens are painted in a Chinese's motif style to reflect Nv Wa's world. Lady Liberty and Nv Wa are skillfully weaving the thread with their needles, solving their world's problem.

The typical woman, the stereotype goes, beautifies herself with makeup, applying color, shine, shades…

Liberty Lady is different. Her makeup is knowledge. Her makeup kit is an open book. She applies wisdom to sustain the environment, solve problems.

The book, offering wisdom and knowledge, is the source of her makeup and the mirror she uses to see her reflection, assess her progress, her learning.

The Vitruvius Man, Greek column and Shell’s with its golden proportion in the background symbolize knowledge, while stressing that the knowledge is not limited to books, but is used and applied to the real world.

After a hard working day, Liberty Lady is off her pedestal, taking an evening break with her colleague, Gargoyles. On the lower level Roof, another gargoyle is fascinated by the activities in humans' world.

While resting, Liberty Lady is tuned to?... Gargoyles may be sharing with her the gargoyle’s stories. She may be listening to the music in the air; she may be listening to our life’s song, ever caring about us.

In an industrial cold setting, Liberty Lady is painting clouds. There’s a strong contrast between the vibrant cloudscape and the surrounding mechanical and harsh metropolis.

This vibrant cloudscape offers a better, more pleasant, welcoming option.

Using her brush and spirit, Liberty Lady’s work offers a livelier alternative.
Her own outfit offers a practical alternative; a combination of creative and decorative components and the functional armory.

As a counter effect to the cold, harsh world, Liberty Lady is creating a softer, imaginative world. Neither is a perfect solution. Liberty Lady herself though, in her outfit, represents the middle road, where practical, impersonal and functional meet creative, colorful and very personal. The individual can define itself.

Lady liberty, we rarely remember, is like us, human. After hard work, saving, doing, changing, she needs her rest.

But even lounging at peace on a bench, she is vibrant, full of spirit in a surreal environment.

Lady Liberty surrounded by Apothecary cabinet which filled with herbs in the drawers and mortars and pestles on the counter, she is examining the health care system.

Lady Liberty is dressed up and ready to fight for what is right. She is blinded folded, because she deal with only the fact of right or wrong, but not because she sees the events related to whoever she knew or any love/ hate situations or what races...

Laundry hangs outside the window. The cloths are utilitarian, neither fancy nor expensive. These are laborers’ clothes.

There’s no washer or dryer in the house. The struggle to make it, to build a new life in a new place is shared by all immigrants.

There’s always hope; even in the toughest moments. There’s always a dream waiting to become life.

There are the bubbles of hope. The American dream resides in the bubbles encapsulating the head of the Statue of Liberty; the statue that for thousands of immigrants represents hope or some sparkles to make life worth it.

Liberty is off her pedestal, crossing the street of our life. She may seem lost, but she is not. Hope is in the air.

I always say "This is earth," meaning that this is not heaven. We don't always get what we want. When things don't go our way, many of us get upset or depressed, and forget that hope is in the air.

Liberty, out of her element, is the one walking with confidence. If your forward looking is too short, you won’t get very far.

Liberty sees the bubbles of hope in the distance, she knows. It gives her confidence. Her cape is flying with hope, its colors reflected on the car. Will they notice that hope is in the air?

An old building. Bricks aged patina-like. Years of loneliness. No plant to show life is in sight.

An owl stands on guard. It has wings, but it can’t fly. Like a gargoyle, it’s only a sculpture. Unlike a gargoyle though, this owl looks into the room, scares away no one. A bird, attracted by something, lands. It has wings; it can fly.

Out of the room, bubbles of hope float into the world. The bird observes the bubbles of hope. No wings, yet they fly. Bubbles, like our hopes, don’t have wings. Like the wind, our spirit gives them direction, purpose, meaning, life. The bird and the owl know.

Dark night. The only light in the sky is the glow illuminating off Lady Liberty's Tierra. A dog, lost, searches its way back home. Never giving up hope, regardless of how long or how far the search is.

The Liberty images in the bubbles nourish the hope, encapsulate it. As the dog’s love for its owner is unconditional, such is its hope to make it home. Hope. Unconditional.