This is Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West. She was already revered in the Shang dynasty (1766-1122 BC). According to myth, she was first a ferocious deity, depicted with tiger’s teeth and a leopard’s tail, but later evolved into a benevolent goddess of immortality, life death, and creation.

On Mount Kunlun, she cultivates and safeguards the Peaches of Immortality. In my painting, she’s holding one of those peaches up in the air in her right hand. With her other hand, she’s petting a white tiger. Even though a tiger is a powerful and ferocious animal, Xiwangmu isn’t afraid. On the contrary, she’s smiling kindly. She’s powerful, but rules with kindness and not brute force, which I portrayed by painting the tiger lying down around her and her petting it. The white tiger of the West also symbolizes the element metal and her direction, the West.

Behind her, you see mountain tops, but she’s higher than all of them, signaling her residency on Mount Kunlun, between heaven and earth.

She’s dressed in regal Chinese robes in the color pink, to symbolize her femininity and benevolent nature. Her belt is in the color jade, associated with her palace at the jade pond.