If ever in search of the essence of a woman - one can find it at the Masterworks Gallery on Friday evening.

Artist Cherie Richardson has taken digital photographs of women in different life stages and printed them on canvas for her upcoming Artists Up Front Street exhibition entitled the Essence of Women.

She said she was looking for a way to portray the many stages that women represent in a lifetime.

“It is a representation of a personal journey that I am going through right now,” she said, “I think that it is a period of clarity for me and I'm just trying to get the lesson that I need to have out of this time.

“First of all, these are all a reflection of myself, and it is about the journey that women go on. I have started not really with running away, but it is about disparity, un-surety, lack of confidence, and trying to escape a period in life where it was unclear.”

After studying graphic design at university and working in Norfolk, Virginia, for a year, when Miss Richardson returned to the Island she wondered what she would do.

She said: “Here I am saying, let me get a job at an advertising agency. I figured that I would start there because graphic design is my concentration.

“The experience definitely challenged me and that was what I was looking for.”

All of the pictures are named after one form of wood or another and are all set in natural surroundings around the Island.

“I was trying to explore different nationalities and looks and the beauty of women in Bermuda,” she said.

“I want people to appreciate the fact that women can be beautiful - even with clothing on, with locks, with very short hair, with long curly hair or with no hair.

“Also they are in very empress garments as well as their positions on the canvas.”

This is supposed to really celebrate women and hopefully when people leave the exhibition - they have a new appreciation especially for ethnic or women of colour, she said.

“Or they find a new respect for them,” said Miss Richardson. “I want people to feel that they have had almost all of the senses met, their sight, smell and their ears, as she is having a drummer coming.

“I really wanted to promote a soul-full spiritual feeling. I will have trees and plants, and there will be an installation water feature with the body casts.”

Miss Richardson explained the meaning of a few of the pictures. One of the pictures is about a woman, who looks as if she had been washed ashore, but Miss Richardson said she is trying to find a direction for her life.

“The water is there to provide a sense of serenity,” she said, “She is wet and the drapery is just supposed to really extenuate the body the way she is sitting. And then she is also single and that is what the red dot on her head signifies. It also represents another nationality as well.”

Miss Richardson said on life's journey, pregnancy is often something that is met as well.

“The woman in the picture has a very strong personality, her skin was so smooth and the whole appreciation of the idea of someone giving birth is great and I definitely glory in their spirit, but I am not ready for it yet.

“But it is a beautiful experience. This was also a chance for her to look as if she was communing with nature. I don't know if she does it on a regular basis, but the whole natural hair, locks.”

Growing up she attended a private school and was one of the few black children in her class.

“I was singled out and I had major complex about colour and about being so dark,” she said. “I just always saw it as being horrible and my parents were never like ‘you need to stay out of the sun because you are so dark', but it was because when I went school I was singled out and I was weird because I was that colour.

“You don't look like us, you can't hang your hair out, your hair isn't straight. But this again is about learning how to appreciate skin tones.

“This was another aspect of it as well and also the different shades of brown.”

Another part of the exhibit features an older lady, who has lived through many ups and downs.

Miss Richardson said: “She is depicting a woman who is confident. A woman who knows where she is going.

“She has decided on a future and she is creating her own destiny. I wasn't thinking. I wanted that one to be larger - almost half of the life size of her - because I thought it would be like you are walking into the canvas with her.”

She said another picture depicts a new mother and the oneness with the baby.

“It was photographed in the morning light, so it is very fresh, very new,” she said. “This is a picture that will sum up most of the show and I am really pleased with it.”

She said the inspiration for the exhibition came from a mixture of sources.

“As soon as they asked me to do the exhibition - I thought this is finally my chance to do the woman show,” she said.

“The essence of women has been ringing in my head ever since they asked me to be in the Artists Up Front Street again.”

Her first show with Masterworks Artists Up Front Street featured abstract pieces.

“It had none objective pieces and it was really about depicting or expressing issues of society,” she said. “Women and the glass ceiling and those kinds of things.”

Ms Richardson said her father always had a subscription for the National Geographic Magazine and the photographs she viewed increased her love for interesting images and beautiful photography.

“We had a National Geographic juried show and I got a photograph in and I was like I can make it,” she said, “And I was also a part of the National Gallery Show, a part of the 2002 Biennial, the masterworks Members' Show.

“I was like these almost look like National Geographic quality - I should send them for a review. That is major inspiration for a lot of my stuff.”

The exhibition will also feature body casting of the pregnant form. The body casts were made from expectant women and she has called one of them “Mother Earth”. She said the woman had a son and she decorated it in a more masculine way.

“The tie-dyed look - I think it makes it more masculine and I used blues and greens - typical boy colours,” she said.

“It also looks like earth from space and it was supposed to reflect that as well.”

Miss Richardson said her horizons were broadened when she travelled for a year with Up With People.

“The whole year I was exposed a great deal, like different people who had different morals and not just different cultures, but everything. And so living with people was different than living at home.

“I went to Mexico for two weeks, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. It was an experience that I would never give up - it opened up my eyes to a lot and when I came back I was like, ‘I can't live here'.

“It is not to say that I don't love Bermuda - it is a wonderful place to stay and it is beautiful and I try my very best to appreciate everything that is around me, but I just for some reason feel stifled and if you are doing something that is a little different than what is the norm, than it is really something wrong with you.

“When I was away in school I was able to explore a little bit more and you don't have this or that person watching you.

“So in that respect I find Bermuda stifling and then the whole religion thing and is it about religion or is it about your spiritual walk. I find that a huge difference - you can be religious and do all that type of stuff and then you can also be spiritual with that and find your way. It is part of the journey.”