Warrior Princess 1985

Here's Ken Kelly's "Warrior Princess," painted sometime before his death in 2022. I can imagine Kelly laying down washes of color, building up the figures with confident strokes, blending highlights and shadows to give them that heroic sheen. It’s interesting how the artist combined ancient and futuristic motifs. I wonder what he was thinking. What was he reading? I sympathize with him trying to create these hybrid realities. The princess herself sits tall on her golden steed; its tail and legs are rendered with such care, it feels as though the animal has emerged through constant refinement. She raises her sword, and you get the sense that she’s both powerful and vulnerable, leading her tribe towards some unseen future while a futuristic airplane monitors their movements in the sky above. Artists like Kelly, Frazetta, and Boris Vallejo create worlds we can only dream of, adding to the rich tapestry of images that came before and inspiring new ones along the way. There is a constant exchange of ideas. Painting, after all, is about possibilities rather than certainties.