‘THE ASTRONAUT’
2025

I’ve been wanting to add an astronaut to my WOMEN series ever since I watched the Netflix documentary Mercury 13, about the women who trained for America’s first human space program in the 1960s—only to be excluded in favor of men. When I began sketching this piece, I also drew inspiration from astronaut Sunita Williams’s hair, which had once been the subject of a tasteless, sexist, and racist remark from Trump.

During my research, I also learned that the first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova, who flew aboard Vostok 6, and I discovered a trove of stunning 1960s Russian space-exploration stamps. So I decided to paint the piece in that style and make it an homage to Valentina Tereshkova, and all the women astronauts regardless of nationality.