About this artwork

“I met them all. Some were vicious and crooked. But … you saw Hollywood with their eyes — an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses.” Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane Mortenson was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn’s life is archetypal of Roses and Thorns’ life. Her thorny and rosy life started as an illegitimate child by a mother who spent most of her life in a mental institution which made Norma Jeane live in about 12 foster homes until she was fifteen years old. She dropped out of high school and got married but her husband died at war during World War 2. Her rosy life started when she was discovered by a photographer that made her a glamorous pin-up model and it was allegedly said that the photographer had an affair with her. Her fame as glamour model earned her acting contract at Hollywood where she adopted Marilyn Monroe as her stage name.
The gown Marilyn Monroe wore in the iconic picture that I used as a reference for this painting was a white gown. In this painting, I changed the colour of the gown to red just as I changed her last name from Monroe to monROSE to depict her as a red-hot Hollywood superstar of her time.
Marilyn’s thorny life ended as it started. It was allegedly said that many Hollywood film directors would not give Marilyn a part in the movies without her sleeping with them. The true love that she craved all her life eluded her as her second husband divorced her because he did not like the sex symbol image of Marilyn. The Demands and pressures of life made her turn to drugs which eventually ended her life at the age of 36 with nobody in her life.