Portfolio
/
Fine Art
/
America Needs Love

America Needs Love

Medium
Fine Art
Dimension
24 x 36 in
Date
April 2026
Tools Used
Oil Paints
Winsor & Newton
Description

Liberty with her hand on her heart, which is not how she is usually drawn. This is oil at twenty-four by thirty-six inches, the figure in green against the red and white of the flag, and beside her a hand-lettered panel in the manner of a comic balloon saying that America needs love. I built her the slow way, a graphite drawing first, then a raw umber block-in, then the green, then the crown, and the stripes and the lettering last of all. Pop art gave me the flat colour and the speech balloon. The rest is a wish, said plainly, at a size that makes it hard to walk past.

Oil painting of the Statue of Liberty in green with a hand on her heart against red and white stripes, beside a hand-lettered blue panel reading Miss Liberty says, America needs love.
View
MORE IN

Fine Art

Previous workNext work
Charcoal and graphite drawing of a mock TIME cover, a young man in glasses in profile gazing up toward falling light, with the cover line Look Up! It's Light & Flowers.
View

Look Up!

October 2026
Gouache self-portrait in black-framed glasses on a deep red field, a red rose crossing the face, a spent sunflower at the shoulder and the letters T, A and N set into the composition.
View

Multi-Portrait

November 2025
Framed charcoal and graphite drawing of a mock TIME magazine cover, with a hand-lettered masthead and a portrait of a young man in glasses under the headline A Plan in Tan's Hand.
View

A Plan in Tan’s Hand

April 2026
Four gouache panels in blue and gold shown together as a set, each staging a different idiom as a single image.
View

Visual Idioms

January 2026
Gouache self-portrait with the top of the head opened like a planter and filled with coloured building blocks, a small green umbrella above and a tree at the left.
View

Father Nature

January 2026
Gouache portrait of Bad Bunny with curly hair, moustache and beard, painted against the Puerto Rican flag.
View

DTMF Bad Bunny

April 2026
Oil painting of the Statue of Liberty in green with a hand on her heart against red and white stripes, beside a hand-lettered blue panel reading Miss Liberty says, America needs love.
View

America Needs Love

April 2026
Oil portrait of a young man with vivid blue hair shading his eyes, in a gold garment against a dark ground, with a teal square, red circle and yellow triangle at his shoulder spelling his full name in Mandarin characters.
View

Kyle’s Portrait

April 2026
Oil portrait of a young girl in a crown of daisies, roses, tulips and a sunflower, a yellow butterfly at the left and a glowing blue butterfly at her shoulder, on a warm yellow to pink ground.
View

The Flower Crown On Sister's Hair

June 2026
Oil self-portrait in glasses against a ground split between red and deep navy, with a glowing sunflower behind the ear and two monarch butterflies lifting away from it.
View

Young Man With Sunflower

May 2026
Alcohol marker and coloured pencil illustration of a Vietnamese broken rice plate with grilled pork, a fried egg, herbs and pickles, hand-lettered Cơm Tấm.
View

Vietnamese Food

November 2025
Gouache painting on a red field, a large gold five-pointed star with a single eye behind black-framed glasses set inside it.
View

A Star In Tan

March 2026
Oil triptych Vietnamese Spirit, the Lac bird carrying a golden lotus, a young man in a red Ao dai holding a gold star, and a Ly-Tran dynasty dragon.
View

Vietnamese Spirit · Long Lac Heart Reunion

April 2026
Gouache portrait of Jack Kirby in blues and teals, hand resting at his cheek, against a ground patterned with four-pointed stars.
View

Jack Kirby

March 2026
Gouache portrait of Stan Lee smiling in blues, in dark-framed glasses and a shirt patterned with circled number four motifs.
View

Stan Lee

March 2026
Graphite and coloured pencil presentation drawing of the Baxter Building and the Excelsior tower in perspective, with hand-lettered callouts and a circled number four mark.
View

The Baxter Building & The Excelsior in Perspective

December 2025
Alcohol marker, acrylic and coloured pencil still life of the Fantastic Four uniform, a blue suit with a circled four, a white glove in the sleeve, grey boots and a buckled belt, against cream with turquoise stars.
View

Fantastic Costume

November 2025
Oil painting on canvas of an open hand held palm out with the thumb tucked, hand-lettered four three two one we have lift off, with the First Steps logo at lower right.
View

‘Four’ The Stars

November 2025
Close lightbox
Previous image
Next image
Graphite drawing stage on paper, construction lines still visible across the face and the hand at the chest.Graphite drawing stage on paper, construction lines still visible across the face and the hand at the chest.
Raw umber oil block-in on canvas, the whole figure carried in a single brown tone.Raw umber oil block-in on canvas, the whole figure carried in a single brown tone.
Colour stage with the figure turned teal green over an ochre ground, before the crown was added.Colour stage with the figure turned teal green over an ochre ground, before the crown was added.
Later stage with the spiked crown and the robe drapery resolved, the ground still ochre.Later stage with the spiked crown and the robe drapery resolved, the ground still ochre.
Oil painting of the Statue of Liberty in green with a hand on her heart against red and white stripes, beside a hand-lettered blue panel reading Miss Liberty says, America needs love.Oil painting of the Statue of Liberty in green with a hand on her heart against red and white stripes, beside a hand-lettered blue panel reading Miss Liberty says, America needs love.
⏴
⏵
Back/Next
Mouse scroll icon
Zoom In/Out
SPACE
On/Off Magnifier
Brightness