Venus

In Venus, I engage with one of the oldest images in the history of art — the female body as a symbol of physicality, sensuality, and attraction.

The title refers both to the classical tradition of depicting the goddess of love and to the far more ancient Paleolithic “Venus” figurines — small female figures in which the breasts, belly, and hips are emphasised, while the face and limbs are often deprived of individual features or reduced to simplified signs.

My figure of Venus is constructed according to a similar principle. Anatomical accuracy deliberately gives way to the expressiveness of the silhouette: disproportionately large hips, a soft belly, breasts, and a curve impossible for a real body come together to form a unified sculptural shape. This is neither a portrait of a particular woman nor an academic nude, but rather a kind of formula for the female body.

The way the work was created is particularly significant. The figure emerged almost instantly, like a sketch drawn in a free, continuous gesture. Here, the line does not so much describe the body as create it. This gives the figure its sense of fluidity: anatomy submits to rhythm, while a physically impossible pose becomes visually convincing.

The contrast between the warm flesh tones, red hair, and deep blue space heightens the sensuality of the image without making it overtly erotic. Closed eyes, a simplified face, and a relaxed pose give Venus a sense of self-possession: she is not posing for the viewer and seems almost unaware of being observed.

In this work, the female body simultaneously becomes the object of the gaze and escapes it. The viewer is presented with the traditional signs of feminine attractiveness — nudity, breasts, rounded forms, softness, and curves — yet the figure itself refuses to submit to realistic anatomy.

Venus exists not as a physically possible body, but as an image of the body — recognisable, sensual, and deliberately stylised.