Kira Argounova

Oils on canvas
14 x 11"
1979

I was inspired by the heroine of Ayn Rand's semi-autobiographical novel "We The Living". At the end of the novel Kira attempts to escape from the Soviet Union. She dresses in her mother's wedding gown because its white color would camouflage her against the snow where the Soviet guards are on duty to prevent escape. I won't give away the denouement. Read this great novel for yourself. It's been translated into many languages, including Russian, I think. Ought to be since Ayn Rand was born in Russia.

"She put on the white wedding gown, and it's long train rustled....She wound the white scarf tightly about her hair...."

"In the white mittens, her fingers ached, her bones drawn tight, her joints squeezed as in a vise. She must be cold, she thought; she wondered dimly whether it was a very cold night."

--Ayn Rand "We The Living"