She’s done. Birth of Venus, my third painting on this theme. It was over a year ago when I started this one …. and what a year it’s been! I guess all things happen in their own time as the convergence of so many vectors.
These last few days I’ve explored how her expression can shift with the smallest changes, the tiniest marks. And now, every time I look at her I feel something different — wonder, fear, mystery, desire, peace, youthful indifference — I guess over time I’ll know more about that — beauty has so many dimensions. The home stretch of a project like this is always intense … these last days of work have been emotionally charged and I’ve thought of very little else. I love it when that happens — it is what I live for.
Photographing this painting has been impossible. Guess that’s mainly because the iridescent gold background absolutely does not read correctly … clearly this one will need a professional photographer.
The symbolism in this painting is highly personal; I can only hope it translates universally. At the very least, I hope you are struck by her beauty.
On a deeper level, the primordial sea is below and divine light above. The flowers, a nod to Botticelli’s masterwork, represent the unfolding of material reality. Beauty, like love, is a force — not an emotion or an opinion — it shines with original light. Gold reaches down into the dark water of possibility like the fingers of God. The shadow boxes with each of the flowers are Platonic forms come into expression … I guess the sea could be thought of as the cave in Plato’s allegory, but I see it as the opening to the cave … the moment of illumination … the opportunity to choose. The flowers, like Venus herself, emerge from the sea as matter … as beauty we can see. Upon seeing her we feel the magic of original light, but that is only because that light already exist within us. It connects with us because it reminds us who we are. As one of my spiritual teachers often reminds me “You don’t fall in love; you don’t find beauty. Your circumstances may cause you to ‘feel’ that you do, but they simply open a door that is inside you. You can access the divine inside yourself anytime you want. You can feel love just by feeling it; you can see beauty anywhere you look for it.”
So maybe it is The Good Fight to open that door … to share the magic of beauty. I wonder all the time why I paint, and I guess the best explanation I can come up with it this: God I love it so!
