Love - Valentine's 2009 - part 1

the following is the first of what i hope will be an evolving larger collection of paintings on the topic of love, these having been done especially for an art show on Valentine's Day in New York.

[if the art seems small you should be able to click on them for larger views]

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there are a myriad of definitions and applications for the concept of "love". loving a person, a friend, family, a dog, a plate of hot wings, the people in my life, life itself, even you. love can be selfless or selfish, it can be naught more than good timing, a firing of synapses and chemicals in the brain, or a miracle confirming that notion that we are the soul that has a body, not the other way around. it is of course a person and case specific thing, defined by past experience and future yearnings or avoidances, with the outcome of "justification vs. fulfillment's" concordance and compromise. it is an amorphous, ever changing, ever breathing entity, and it is as unique as the person who is motivated one direction or the other by its engine.

above all, i recognize that anything i would have to say on the topic of love are equal parts right and wrong, negating each other; that i could never say everything on the subject to every person. not merely a "many splendored thing", perhaps it is an unsolved mystery with intangible plot holes but attainable outcomes, or a threatening ransom note with no author but with victims and rewards. it's impossible and somehow everywhere. i'd like this to be a love letter to love itself, but i see now that these paintings are only footnotes and postscripts to a far larger more accurate textbook. i also see now, that this small fraction is more of a study than it is the celebration i hope it to be someday. regardless, i'll wait for correspondence; you can circle yes or no. these pieces are a futile equivalent of trying to bottle a cloud, but if i'm lucky, maybe a string could resonate within your own ribcage.

thank you, and happy valentine's day
love,
peter wonsowski
2/14/2009

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
--Hafiz of Persia

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Anchorless vs. Rudderless



The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.
--Robert Newton Anthony

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Do You See Me When I'm Not Around?



True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld

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Transfusion -
(the greatest cures are derived by scaling backwards from the greatest poisons)



She's gone. I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her.
William Shakespeare

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The Rational Mind is Having a Terribly Hard Time Telling the Heart That It's Wrong



How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
-Albert Einstein

Love is a serious mental disease.
-Plato

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