Bathing Aphrodite

Bathing Aphrodite
Acrylic on plywood
56 x 33Two days of obsessive painting has given me this image of Aphrodite either preparing to take a bath or just finishing one. I am well pleased with the results of this latest piece in my wood grain series. The washes in the background were quite successful, in my opinion and there is a serious amount of tension produced by the interplay between the abstractions demanded by following the wood grain and the overlay of the figurative painting. The battle for mass and dimension is a bit unsettling to me, and her pose, with her mouth out of sight leaves me slightly frustrated.
If I might depart from discussing technique, then it must be stated that the process of creating this painting was similar if not identical to a torrid affair. My emotional state became anxious whenever I was not in front of the easel laying on more paint. Perhaps the more apt metaphor is like a wild fling that lasts for a couple of intense days and then the lovers separate perhaps never to see each other again. They both know and understand this basic fact and therefore thy both pour everything they have into the time spent together. This wild abandon drains them and fulfills their inner most needs at the same time and when it is all over they are both changed for all eternity, only it is impossible to be able to classify these changes in the immediate present. It is possibly only important to realize that the change has occurred, not to be able to state what it is that changed.
I am relieved that this has been completed and that it has passed through me. I hope that it strikes somebody else in the same manner in which I felt it, magnitude equity is not necessary. Leave comments, questions or remarks in all the usual places!