Meet The Artist Capturing How Women Around The World Coped During The Global Pandemic

Portraits by Rebecca Moses

Rebecca Moses

“This is a time we have now to report and doc. These are tales we can inform our grandchildren, inform them what it was actually like. I had a human and inventive need to doc what we had been going via with work,” mentioned artist and designer Rebecca Moses.

Moses, like so many individuals in 2020, had life derailed. Her marketing campaign for the Fragrance Foundation was halted after a yr of planning. Life for everybody drastically modified beneath quarantine, and Moses’ day by day observe of portray and drawing life as an inventive ritual, compelled her to search out inspiration in new locations: the ladies throughout the globe who had been carrying the burden of the pandemic on their shoulders. 

The artist and designer, Rebecca Moses

Rebecca Moses

She turned to her Instagram account, sharing that she would paint portraits of any girl who would share what her life was like in the course of the lockdown. They needed to ship a 2,000-word entry and a photograph about what her ‘new regular’ seemed like. Moses received letters from around the globe, from over 21 nations, which started The Stay Home Sisters neighborhood. 

Today, 420 girls from across the globe have taken half in what has turn into a neighborhood but additionally a type of historic archiving via letters and portraits. It is on this form of distinctive documentation that the intimate moments taken place on this unprecedented time, will assist give nuance and a deeper understanding of how girls coped and present resilience within the time of the Covid-19 international pandemic.

“I discovered all these girls so resourceful, so courageous, so extremely decided to beat what they had been going via. It was manner past resilience, so many of those girls had been single mother and father with kids that wanted help, and all their companies had been reduce off, they needed to turn into full-time care keepers, some misplaced revenue, I can go on and on. These girls had been outstanding.”

The tales of girls Moses captured via portraits had been about loss, love, heartbreak, beginning, the blossoming of recent passions and relationships all within the midst of staying at dwelling – the one factor we may management in the course of the top of the pandemic. She captured the intimate vary of every part covid introduced with it contained in the lives of girls, from the nice, the unhealthy, and the silver lining.

Portrait of Alissar Taremi cooking whereas 5 months pregnant throughout lockdown in New York City

Rebecca Moses

Alissar Taremi, Marketing Director on the Fragrance Foundation, is without doubt one of the girls who’s a part of The Stay at Home Sisters neighborhood. “Rebecca introduced girls from all around the world collectively, giving them a platform to share their distinctive tales in the course of the lockdown. This created a sisterhood and neighborhood via Rebecca’s inspiring art work. In March of 2020 when Rebecca painted my portrait, I used to be 5 months pregnant in lockdown. I used to be residing in NYC, the epicenter on the time. There was an added degree of stress and uncertainty, and with that, a powerful dedication to remain dwelling and do no matter it took to maintain our household protected,” says Taremi. “Rebecca’s portraits transported me and all the girls to a second of escape and happiness, and a connection to the opposite ‘Sisters’. Rebecca gave all her Stay Home Sisters hope, gentle and happiness throughout a darkish time.”
Moses, a style business powerhouse with a profession that included succeeding Gianni Versace on the Italian label Genny in Milan within the early Nineteen Nineties was one of many first American designers to enter the European market. Today she is well-known for her impressionistic portraiture of girls in wealthy hues, and fantastical stylizing impressed by the limitless capability of girls. She has collaborated with mega manufacturers like Alacantara, the Fragrance Foundation, Mac Cosmetics, Fratelli Rossetti and has been featured in Vogue Italia and Vogue Japan. 

Portraits by Rebecca Moses

Rebecca Moses

“I by no means imagined what the portrait may imply for these girls,” mentioned Moses.  “It gave them a way of dignity, of satisfaction, an immense sense that they had been being paid consideration to; they felt revered.  I by no means really understood the facility a portrait may have on the topic till I used to be within the midst of this mission.”
Every day, Moses painted girls from around the globe and The Stay Home Sisters neighborhood grew an increasing number of international. “It blew me away each day and it gave me bionic vitality to color. Each letter mentioned that this felt so great, and it made me say wow, did I actually do that!?”, says Moses.
Then, in April, the motion grew to extra than simply the ladies that had been capable of keep dwelling.
Linda Valentino, the Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Mount Sinai Health System, was on the frontlines of the pandemic. Her sister, Anne, wrote Moses about her: “‘My sister just isn’t a Stay Home Sister. She’s truly on the entrance strains of engaged on the response to the pandemic.’” At the peak of the pandemic in New York, Valentino was working at Mount Sinai’s Covid-19 epicenter in Brooklyn, tirelessly overseeing all nursing operations.
Moses wished to honor Valentino’s work and paint her portrait. With the World Health Organization designating 2020 because the Year of the Nurse and Midwife for the yr of remarkable work performed beneath the impossibly troublesome circumstances. Valentino, Moses, and Linda Levy, president of the Fragrance Foundation got here collectively to develop a option to honor these outstanding girls engaged on the frontline. Moses painted the portraits of 46 nurses of Mount Sinai Hospital the place they had been exhibited on the Guggenheim Pavilion. Levy, organized to donate 5,000 perfume and sweetness merchandise to assist the ladies who deal with everybody else, take time for some much-deserved self-care.  

Portrait by Rebecca Moses

Rebecca Moses

“When I proposed a plan to The Fragrance Foundation’s membership for donations of perfume presents to the Mount Sinai nurses in NYC, our perfume members’ unanimous response was enthusiastically constructive. It was our option to present our gratitude to 1000’s of nurses who’re frontline heroes. Fragrance enhances an individual’s temper and is immediately linked to the mind’s processing middle for reminiscences and emotion. The aim was for Mount Sinai Nurses to boost their self-care, rest and well-being,” mentioned Levy.
As an artist and designer, Moses’ eye has been capable of finding the nuance, hope, and humanity within the tales of girls. It is constant in her work. She spoke with Forbes about how she used this lens of positivity and hope in her personal life. “Like so many individuals, I’ve skilled nice loss. It’s part of life. But it’s how we confront these moments that make the distinction.  When my husband died too younger from most cancers, I understood that I acquired two stunning boys from my marriage and I needed to discover hope and light-weight for them.  I didn’t need any of us to be a sufferer of circumstances we couldn’t management. Loss taught me quite a bit about residing, how troublesome moments could make us higher. We push our boundaries as a result of there are issues inside us, strengths and insights we can not think about which are revealed in troublesome moments.”