Abigail Drapkin

Tenderhearted, 2025 - 2026​​​​

I began painting the artichokes out of aesthetic fascination, but the plant’s dramatic life cycle soon edged itself into my figure paintings of women as well, symbols of aging, beauty, and fertility. As I researched the artichoke, I learned of the popular Italian dish, carciofi alla giudia, an invention of the Jewish communities confined to the ghettos of Rome in the 15th century. At the time artichokes and eggplants were considered food only for the poor, yet the Jews innovated with what they had, developing a delicacy that was adopted long after their communities dwindled as they were forced to leave in waves of racial discrimination or murdered in the Holocaust. As a Jewish Portuguese woman from a small town in Maine, but now living in Seattle, I am fascinated to find these connections to my own diaspora emerge from the soil of my new garden.

 

Through painting and researching the artichoke, or cynara cardunculus, I see the flower as not only representative of the cyclical, transient nature of life, beauty, and health, but as a symbol of resilience. Its sharp, tough outer shell and thready choke (which must be removed prior to cooking) guards a tender heart within. Each season, the plant dies back, but always returns again, its enormous spiky leaves and stunning purple flowers a reminder that we can survive even the darkest of winters.