{"product_id":"bernini-study-how-are-you-still-breathing-with-my-hands-all-over-your-heart","title":"Bernini Study (How are you still breathing with my hands all over your heart?)","description":"\u003cp\u003e8\" x 8\" x 1\" oil ink monotype on muslin in 14 layers, stretched over wood cradle. Part of the ongoing 'Views of Venus' series.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s 1622 marble sculpture \u003cem\u003eThe Abduction of Proserpina\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have mixed feelings about this arresting sculpture. I’m drawn to the impossible tenderness of the carving — fingers sinking into soft thigh, hard muscle pressing into flesh — and horrified by the subject itself: the abduction of Persephone by Hades, god of the underworld.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tight, almost blinder-like framing of this small section reflects my own reluctance to look directly at the larger narrative. Even my choice to reference “abduction” rather than “rape” reveals a certain discomfort. And yet I cannot look away. I have returned to this sculpture again and again over the years, caught between guilt and fascination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSometimes love is myopic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter finishing the piece, I struggled to title it until I found a scrap of paper in my studio with a lyric I had written down months earlier: “How are you still breathing with my hands all over your heart?” Borrowed from “Tough Love” by Flyte and Laura Marling, the line’s image of codependency and suffocating love suddenly felt inseparable from the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c!-- notionvc: 2ba7a8b5-3a79-4b37-93b2-c610b5e119e1 --\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Stavisky Studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48337994776790,"sku":null,"price":500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0724\/0358\/3190\/files\/Bernini_Study_Web.png?v=1780961889","url":"https:\/\/staviskystudio.com\/products\/bernini-study-how-are-you-still-breathing-with-my-hands-all-over-your-heart","provider":"Stavisky Studio","version":"1.0","type":"link"}