Christina Van Dyke is a Boston‐based multidisciplinary artist with a background in design and photography whose work reinterprets the female form and explores the complexities of human experience through contemporary figurative portraiture. In her ongoing series, The Art of Being Female, Van Dyke pays tribute to the multifaceted layers of womanhood—imperfect, flawed, and undeniably beautiful—by celebrating the beauty found within imperfection and the raw, unpolished aspects that define our humanity.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, with recent showings in Milan, Rome, Madrid, and Monaco. From March through June 2025, Van Dyke’s work will be on display at The Huntington Theater in Boston in two distinct exhibitions, each aligning with a different theatrical production: The Triumph of Love and The Light in the Piazza. Both exhibitions explore themes of identity, strength, and self-discovery, offering a visual dialogue that resonates with the narratives unfolding on stage.

The Art of Being Female: STRENGTH & VULNERABILITY

Exploring the balance between the opposing forces that shape us: strength as an act of courage and vulnerability as an expression of fortitude. Together, they form the essence of our humanity—our ability to endure, to feel, and to connect.

Through six portraits titled Resilience, Grace, Courage, Conviction, Fortitude, and Empathy, the series reveals the tension within contradictions: the strength to remain open, the grace to move through pain, and the quiet fortitude in revealing our truest selves.

*Signed and numbered — part of a limited edition of 50/each.

Beatriz Amelia Whitehill is a Puerto Rican-American multidisciplinary artist. Her work speaks to diasporic communities through a visual representation of the resilience and endurance of culture. Her paintings are worlds that contain fleeting memories and inner reflections hidden within everyday objects. She blends traditional painting techniques with animation and three-dimensional installation to build immersive and accessible artworks. Beatriz holds a BFA in painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Beatriz is currently a painting studio mentor at Artists for Humanity and a community artist liaison for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She is a studio resident at Boston Center for the Arts. 

The following piece was written by the artist to accompany her works displayed here. “Reminder to Call my Sisters” is her reflection on her own relationship to familiar ties to Puerto Rico, and family stories that she shares with her own two sisters.  

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Reminder to call my sisters 

I try to never miss my sister’s calls.
We’re different people, but don’t we have the same dreams?

In my dreams, I’ve been traveling very far.
Away from here
and I’m with my grandparents
and they know me this time.
Waking up is just a reminder
to call my sisters.

There’s a curse we promised each other we’d break.
The kind of curse that creates a distance you can’t close with an airline ticket.
It means having an accent you can’t quite place. And slang you don’t fully understand.
It creates strangers out of relatives. And resentments out of guilt.

“There’s nothing stranger than family”
something my dad always says.
A stand-in for the skeletons in the closets, something like an excuse.
He learned to be a patient man living with four Puerto Rican women.

There’s always someone in the family best known for their ghost stories.