Venus [Dimensions: e.g., 48" x 72" or your actual size] · Carbon pencil, blackening watercolours, and inks on paper mounted to canvas · [2020–2025]
This reclining Venus reinterprets the classical goddess of love and beauty through the intimate gaze of a loved one—Kara, sleeping, vulnerable, and utterly present. The figure rests in quiet surrender, her form emerging from layered shadows and drips that evoke the slow unveiling of truth beneath the surface.
No masks here: the unmasked self lies exposed in repose, embodying Eastern emptiness and the honest beauty of simply being. The pose echoes Titian, Giorgione, and Manet, yet the darkness around her is not threat but cradle—pain transformed into tender optimism, desire into discovery.
A meditation on intimacy, vulnerability, rebirth, and the eternal interplay of dark and light—eternally optimistic even in stillness.
Inquiries welcome for acquisition, studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com