Penny

Haleh Mashian’s Penny captures a moment of introspection and longing through the portrait of an elderly woman seated at a slot machine. Her silver hair, carefully styled, contrasts with the weariness etched across her face. A cigarette rests between her fingers as she gazes toward the illuminated screens, absorbed in the rhythm of the game. The composition draws focus to her solitude, surrounding her with the soft glow and metallic reflections of the casino lights.

Penny reflects Mashian’s fascination with human vulnerability and the quiet search for comfort amid chaos. The visible texture and layered brushwork mirror the emotional depth of the subject. Her hope, nostalgia, and the fleeting escape she seeks through chance.

Part of Mashian’s Figurative Series, Penny embodies the artist’s expressive approach to storytelling and form. Ideal for collectors and interior designers seeking contemporary figurative art that blends emotion, texture, and narrative, this piece offers a timeless reflection on resilience and the human condition.

About the artist

As a painter and creative expressionist, Mashian's abstract works reveal her appreciation of color theory, compositional form, and studying positive and negative space. Working in mixed media and using various techniques from collage to impasto, a repeated layering and application of paint, Mashian's dynamic pieces range from smaller artworks that can be arranged together to large-scale paintings. Her large-paneled paintings have been exhibited nationally in Los Angeles, Miami, and other art enclaves and are included in private collections in the United States and abroad.