'I Want You' Print

“LOVE LIES BLEEDING” This painting celebrates the birth of desire, lust, enticement and seduction whilst marrying extracts from Greek and Roman mythologies. Cupid who is the God of desire, affection and erotic love is transcribed here through feathers and his love arrow. He is the love child of Venus and Mars. Venus who is a Roman Goddess of love, beauty and fertility emerged from the sea at her birth according to interpretations of Sandro Botticelli's iconic painting in c. 1486. The blind fold in my work is a representation of seeing nothing but the sea. Mars is the Roman God of War, represented military power as a way to secure peace. His virility and masculinity is attributed to the painting through the moustache. The Greek mythology mirrors many nuances when Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of sexuality and love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros. I was keen to explore an aphrodisiac element in this work through the oyster to find that the name 'aphrodisiac' stemmed from Aphrodite. The oyster has maintained a timeless mystique when it comes to passion and is regarded as the food of love since immemorial time. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. In classical antiquity, the sea shell was a metaphor for woman's vulva – which is hiding in the painting. Vulva is a richly innervated external organ but as well as having a sexual function it has the power to give life. I wanted to continue exploring the theme of 'birth' through painting the butterflies in the chrysalis and a cocoon. My prominent depiction of butterflies is linked to Cupid's/Eros's love Psyche, who in Greek mythology was the deification of the human soul. She was portrayed in ancient mosaics as a goddess with butterfly wings (psyche is also the Greek word for 'butterfly'). The Greek word psyche literally means "spirit, breath, life or animating force".

Print:Giclee on Canvas

Size:12 W x 16 H x 1.25 D in

Size with Frame:13.75 W x 17.75 H x 1.25 D in

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