L'AGE NOIR: THE BIRTH OF THE SYPHILITIC VENUS & THE DEATH OF EUROPE
PAPER, DRAWING PENCIL, BLOOD, MENSTRUAL BLOOD
APPROX. 34.5" X 22.5" © 2005 - 2006

Portrait of My Love as the Black Death completed over the course of 13 months. The Birth of the Syphilitic Venus heralding the Death of Europe. Drawn entirely in drawing pencil and measuring approximately 3 feet in width by 2 feet in height. The red is painted with blood, being a mixture between my own and the menstrual blood of my fiancee for symbolic of the concept as well as an added magickal quality not necessarily visible, reflecting the underlying occult themes.

A corruption of the very popular Classical Rennaissance ideal yet embodying Eros & Thanatos, Love & Death as opposed to solely the Goddess of Love, herein depicting a beautiful woman beckoning with an insidious seduction which one would pay the ultimate mortal consequence to taste. Like a Venus in Furs whose adornments are scalped from the flesh of her lovers, which of course (though with no political agenda involved) evokes a present day parallel to our AIDS which is a plague in itself and in a sense our modern day Black Death, which has been a lifelong fascination. If the popular maxim is that there is no death without subsequent birth then the opposite holds true as well like the allegorical self-devouring serpent.

The Classical ideal is one to be corrupted but evoked simultaneously as it's prevalent today that either the artist portray his works technically skilled but with no vision behind it or else the others portray a vision but completely lack the technical dimension which we look in awe of at the old masters. This is an allusion not meant as any personal comparison but as an homage to great conceptual art largely lacking today.

L'AGE NOIR FIRST SKETCH STUDY OF CONCEPT