Two smiling Black women stand side by side against a pale background, their bodies cropped at the knees so they command the seven-by-nine-foot canvas. On the left, a taller woman with hair pulled back, dressed in a white long-sleeved top and dark skirt cradles a small brown-and-white dog whose bright red collar gives the painting its name. The top of her head grazes the canvas edge as she leans toward her companion, laughing as she looks down at the dog. To the right, her friend, in a vertical striped dress of red, blue, black, and white, turns inward with one hand tucked casually into her pocket, her gentle smile and tilted head meeting the dog’s gaze. Boafo’s characteristic finger-painted, marbled skin contrasts with the smoother brushwork of clothes, dog, and background, heightening the sense of touch, warmth, and closeness shared among all three. Painted in 2021 while artist Amoako Boafo was working in Los Angeles and depicting close friends from his Ghanaian circle, "Red Collar" embodies the ethos of the exhibition "Soul of Black Folks" with Black subjects centered, relaxed, and gloriously themselves. The red collar quietly shifts focus from fashion spectacle to care, loyalty, and the everyday intimacies that structure Black life. Boafo reserves direct finger painting for skin and hair, marking Black bodies as sites of connection rather than consumption, while the monumental scale of the canvas elevates a simple moment of shared joy to the level of history painting. Traveling from gallery to museum, including its presentation in "Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks" and in the Hornik Collection exhibition "Some Dogs Go to Dallas," the work anchors Boafo’s larger project of documenting Black friendship, glamour, and self-possession across continents, insisting that these relationships belong at the heart of contemporary art’s global narrative.

"Red Collar" by Amoako Boafo (Ghanaian) - Oil on canvas / 2021 - Denver Art Museum (Colorado) #WomenInArt #DogArt #AmoakoBoafo #DenverArtMuseum #SeattleArtMuseum #GreenFamilyArtFoundation #HornikCollection #BlackArt #BlackWomen #GhanaianArt #ContemporaryArt #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #Boafo

A plus-size woman leans over the edge of a pink bathtub, her dark hair twisted into a loose topknot, bare arms folded as she gazes down with soft concentration. One finger touches the water’s surface, sending out a crisp ring of ripples that anchors the scene. Beside her, a gray-and-white dog perches on the tub’s rim, paws resting over a striped towel, watchful and calm. Behind them, a grid of warm orange tiles hums with gentle light. Below, the bathwater becomes a second painting: her reflected body and the dog’s form stretch across mauve and lavender tiles, veiled by foam and translucent swirls, blurring where skin, water, and light meet into a quiet portrait of rest, intimacy, and companionship. In “Oh, To Be Loved,” artist Shona McAndrew (born in Paris and based in the United States) turns the bathroom, often a site of scrutiny, into a sanctuary for radical gentleness. Working from her own body and relationships, she paints fat, tender, queer-adjacent domestic life at heroic scale, insisting that care and desire belong to bodies long excluded from art history’s ideals. The woman’s relaxed posture, the everyday setting, and the dog’s unwavering presence insist that love is found in ordinary rituals and in steam, tile, towels, and the slow tracing of a fingertip across water. Created for her 2023 solo exhibition “Rose-Tinted Glasses” at CHART in New York, the painting forms part of a self-reflective series in which McAndrew recasts classical motifs of the nude and the muse through her own image, her partner, and her dog. Later shown in “Some Dogs Go to Dallas” at the Green Family Art Foundation, it resonates within a wider context of portraits where animals witness and affirm human vulnerability like an ode to being seen, held, and loved without condition.

“Oh, To Be Loved” by Shona McAndrew (French) - Acrylic on canvas / 2023 - Green Family Art Foundation (Dallas, Texas) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #WomanArtist #ShonaMcAndrew #McAndrew #BodyPositivity #arte #ContemporaryArt #BlueskyArt #WomenArtists #DogArt #WomensArt #GreenFamilyArtFoundation