Remarkable Women project by Armelle Falliex: #6 Oprah Winfrey

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Armelle Falliex’s Statement
Painting
About the painting by Beatrice Chassepot

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Armelle Falliex’s Statement

Oprah Winfrey was born January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi.
At her birth, her mother, then a servant prefers to entrust the education of her daughter to her grandmother with whom she remained until the age of six. Then she decides to take Oprah with her to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Oprah stays up to her Fourteen years old.

During those years with her mother, Oprah is regularly the victim of sexual abuse by family members and by one of her mother’s friend.

Despite the horrors she suffered daily, Oprah is a good student and received a scholarship at the age of Thirteen to go Nicolet High School in suburban Milwaukee. At the age of 14 she gave birth to a boy who died a few weeks later. Her mother then sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee.

Vernon Winfrey is strict but encouraging and made her education a priority.
Oprah is a brilliant student and wins an oratory contest that earned her a scholarship at the University of Tennessee where she studies communication.

At the age of 17 she is hired by the black radio station “WVOL” to present the news.

She is then the first black woman who worked as a presenter at WLAC-TV in Nashville.

She pursues her career in Baltimore until 1983 then moves Chicago to present AM Chicago on WLS-TV. The show is within a few months the talk show’s most followed in Chicago and will be renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is then the first black woman who worked as a presenter at WLAC-TV in Nashville. She pursues her career in Baltimore until 1983 then moves Chicago to present AM Chicago on WLS-TV. The show is within a few months the talk show’s most followed in Chicago and will be renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Its distribution will become National September 8, 1986 and will last until 2011, until her Twenty-fifth season.

January 4, 2011 Oprah launches her TV Channel: OWN The Oprah Winfrey Network.

Not to mention Oprah is also an actress, producer, editor and writer!

The Advocacy for Black people in the US remains her number one priority.
Oprah is truly an example of commitment and success story. She is known internationally.

Armelle Falliex, Los Angeles, April 10th, 2015

Painting

About the painting by Beatrice Chassepot:

• No color but black and white because Oprah’s life was not as easy as you may think.
• Then lines and lines of words run through her face. They form her face because they are her weapons to explain the unbearable. They help her to move forward in life, and she uses them extremely well for helping other people.
• In that composition, Armelle chose to show Oprah facing us because it is not the kind of person to bias. She looks at life in the face.
• The eyes, deep black, reflect her inner intensity,
• HOPE: that short word is the reason she stands still. Oprah still hopes for a better future.