In each issue of Flow, a Flow illustrators draws or paints one of her women heroes. In issue 31, Elenia Beretta painted writer Virginia Woolf.
“I used gouache and ink for this portrait of Virginia Woolf, and I painted it while I was reading Mrs Dalloway. I was totally captured by Woolf’s style of writing; I loved the detailed way in which she describes relationships. The book is full of old memories, such as her own childhood memory of the sea. She always uses her own experiences in her books. What I find interesting about Woolf is not her tragic ending, but the fact that she set up a publishing house with her husband and that she could completely dedicate herself to writing. During a meeting in 1928, she spoke about women and literary creativity. This led to her writing A Room of One’s Own, which later became a feminist manifesto. ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’, was her motto.”
- Elenia Beretta is an Italian illustrator living in Berlin, Germany. See more of her work on Eleniaberetta.com
Text Alice van Essen Illustration Elenia Beretta
