“I welcome Eros in my painting, in this white space that I have been living in for many years, at the borders of reality, in a desert separating reason from madness.

Eros in person came knocking at my door one night, all by himself, uninvited. I found him at my doorstep, dreadfully injured, dirty, agonized, tongue-tied, and trembling with fear.

At first, I observed him with my misanthropic eye to make sure he wasn’t one of those ‘anti-muses’, one of those nocturnal visitors disrupting the serenity of the artist. After a short moment of hesitancy, I welcomed him into my home, moved by his state of deprivation.

It took me a lot of patience and delicacy to heal his wounds, I washed him, I fed him until he regained his beauty and splendor.

Quickly Eros started thriving again; as an art lover he spread over my paintings, freely, joyfully and healthily. He quickly comprehended my language and started to talk again, to express himself, to narrate. We immediately started a dialogue, we became friends and partners.

He fled from the East where he had suffered. He had been locked away in horrible basements, forced to dress in black to hide his beauty, he was loathed for his freedom and his joy, and a complete army of frustrated begrudged him. He was accused of being the devil and one day was lapidated. But the divine Eros survived.

He also fled from the West. They associated him with ordinary and middling pleasures, they left him naked in the streets, in the cold, judging him worthless, and an object that could be used and dumped subsequently. But Eros is sacred and will always remain so. Therefore, he survived the cold filthy streets.

Injured and stigmatized, he was subjected to the worse outrages, but he survived and finally came to me.

On my canvas he is breathing and shines with all his splendor. He found a motherland, a home, and lots of love.

As for me, I am dazzled by his beauty and every day I offer him new paintings. I am madly inspired by him and I bless the day that he came to live with me.”

2018