I began this canvas in 2005 during a trip that started in Venice, through Slovenia and ended in Vienna. I was reading Hopper at the time and no doubt was drawn to this scene because it reminded me of the kind of canvases Hopper created of his wife Jo in urban, yet intimate settings.

While interested in the woman at the window gazing out into the street below, I especially wanted to paint her surroundings, the discolored and crumbling plaster of a centuries-old Venetian building. At the same time I wanted to present a lone figure, a woman lost in her thoughts in a space that is as private as her viewers choose to accord her.

Although painted a few years later, this other picture — this time of Karen reading by a window — continued my fascination with Hopper’s intersection of private and public spaces.