[Behind the Painting] Karina

"Karina"

My good friend suggested I should talk about of my pieces, so the first piece I picked is one that I think is worthy to talk about because of the subject of the piece.

A few years back, I was introduced to Karina who at the time was a coworker of one of my brothers in the fashion business, working on graphics. At the time, I was just starting to paint portraits for my "Spanish Fly" series. Our interaction was brief and shortly after creating the piece, I lost contact with her. The last thing I heard was that she was involved in the adult business.

Years passed by. I was already living in Virginia and had begun to put my "Spanish Fly" series into a collection  to make the book. While scouting for poets to be included in my book, I happened to befriend a woman who was a writer/spiritualist and as I found out much later a private investigator. She was going to write about one of my paintings in the book and chose the Karina painting. It stood out to her for some reason and was inquiring about the person in the piece, to help form some writing about her.

I told her all I knew about Karina, which wasn't much. However with the info I gave her..she was able to whip up some of her magic and find more information about Karina than I presently knew at the time. Unfortunately it wasn't good news.

It just so happens that she found a police report on Karina's death. She was found facedown naked in her apartment dead. The report stated that she died from asphyxiation , but no markings were found on her body and no forced entry was shown at the location. Originally, her own father found her dead in the apartment.  How tragic. No drugs were found in her system after a further autopsy was done.

The case is not officially closed.

I was completely floored and I knew that I had to include her in my book. Karina was living in Bayonne NJ was in her late 20s, she was last heard of in March of 2006.

She will be missed but not forgotten.