Water Baby
Oil on Canvas | 84 x 48 in
$17000.00
Water Baby
John Mangiardi · 2025 · Brighton Beach, England / Westhampton Beach, NY
Oil on Canvas | 84 x 48 in
$17,000 May be available. Please contact the studio.
Artist Remarks:
In 2020, after recovering from COVID in England, I was invited to work in a large studio outside London. The space belonged to a woman who taught babies to swim, while the upstairs studio became my workspace after yoga and Pilates classes had been suspended during the pandemic.
During my time there, I met a mother whose teenage son had died after falling from the cliffs overlooking the sea. Everywhere she went, she carried a small, worn photograph of him as a baby, sitting at the water's edge in the early morning sun. After years of being folded and carried in her pocket, the photograph had become creased and was beginning to fall apart.
When I saw it, I asked if I could borrow it to paint a portrait for her. I wanted to give her something she could keep, so she would no longer have to rely on the fragile photograph she carried every day.
After I finished the painting, I gave it to her. I never saw her again.
Water Baby is a larger reimagining of that original gift. I chose to remember her son as a baby, preserving the innocence with which every life begins rather than the tragedy that ended it.