Circle of Promise

Synthia Saint James describes herself as a self-taught artist. She credits the Creator and her ancestry (African American, Native American, Haitian and German Jewish) for her artistic gifts. Her images dance on the edge between image and abstraction, simplicity and sophistication, pattern and picture. She uses color symbolically, with cadmium yellow ("golden healing light and love") at the top and in shining points throughout the cluster of women. Circle of Promise was commissioned by Susan G. Komen for the Cure for the Circle of Promise campaign, for which Saint James is a global ambassador. The painting is meant "to encourage hope, healing, unity and love in our fight against breast cancer."

—Lois Huey-Heck