William Conger

at  Zolla/Lieberman Gallery

Siren

The beauty (the red figures) and the voices(blue ribbons) are pulling you in.The temptations are impossible to resist. You are trying to escape (yellow triangles) but the desire prevails. And then suddenly you get stabbed by a long thin blade. You fall as a sinking ship - slowly but surely.

Jong Ro

Longing

Longing is based on the lack of the subject you are longing for (the black figure in the lower middle). Add to the mix idealization( the white spots all over), a big chunk of the need to own (the orange figure on the left) and love(the blue spot on the right). Top it off with hope (the green field on the top) and a shadow of not getting it (the black ribbon on the upper half).

Clare Rojas

at Galleri Nicolai Wallner (Frieze Art Fair New York 2013)

Untitled, 2013

You are in love. You are full of desire, wants and lust(the burgundy figure on the left). Your desire is overwhelming. It is trying to fill everything. Then suddenly it penetrates deep, bellow the veneer layers (beige and white ribbons at the lower middle). You are starting to really know your lover. It brings out the pain (the red figure in the upper right corner) and the dark secrets(the black figure in the lower right).

Myong Stebbins

at Bryant Street Gallery

Poem from Gyeongju III

Love is like an intricate plant. It has roots - events that our conscience does not register. They lead us to the point in time when love gets out of ground, into the open. Love starts to bloom with flowers of desire (lilac spots in the center). They outgrow fast into the white down of comfort. A blow of wind takes the down away. Love sadly dies. But it leaves the seeds for the next spring.

Weekend Edition 37

Henri Matissei

Woman with a hat, 1905 

The woman has the iron grip on her life. She is smart, but she has a calculative, cold mind. She is lonely. This was not always a case. She had full of events life. She was daffy. She was sensual, full of desire. But then a sad thing happened. It could be a love affair with a bad end. She ended up with a broken heart, alone, free of illusions, cynical.

Barbara Kasten

at Bortolami Gallery

Construct LB-5, 1982

Curiosity drives you. Just as a butterfly flies to a light (a construct in the lower left corner), you are moved toward a black hole of Unknown (upper right corner). Your wings are desire(red) and mystery(black). After getting some height(accumulating some knowledge) and crossing some lines (red line from the center to upper middle), you understand the more you know the less the subject is clear. The desire to explore the unknown really opens up the wings(the red figure in the right part of the painting).

Weekend Edition 36

Henri Rousseau

Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905

A woman! She is so desirable. She is in the center. But she is surrounded by so many rules, precepts (the short plants). The blue flowers are the romance and courtship. This leads us to the ripe and juicy exotic fruit : Desire! It is weakly disguised in the upper branches of the trees that are deeply rooted. When you got up there and tasted the fruit, you want more of the exotic, sweet and forbidden fruit!

Weekend Edition 22

Jackson Pollock

Male Female

This is a date. You can feel a lot of flirtation in the air with undertones of desire. Information intake is in the overdrive (ears, eyes are all over the place). Some things are put in the open( the white rectangle in the center). But most of them are behind folding screens that with time would be taken down. Some bits of personal information are strung together. The missing pieces are calculated behind the scenes(the black rectangle with white chalked numbers). There are a lot of unknown - mystery that really attracts you.

Rosy Keyser

Rosy Keyser at Peter Blum Gallery

Folk Conjugation, 2007

You know how you should proceed. You have a clear path ahead of you(the bright branches from the lower left corner to the upper right middle). You even have an alternative plan. It is more risky, but it looks more interesting (the bright branches from the lower right corner). You know that all. But strangely you are extremely attractive to an unknown way (the bright spots behind the branches in the lower left corner). You don't know how it is going to end. It is scary to go where nobody went before. But the unknown lures you in. The desire is so strong, you can't resist it.

Fran Shalom

Fran Shalom at The Painting Center

Untitled

This is Love. You are in the ocean of hope (blue background). In the middle of it there is an island, island of Desire.It is possible that the island is not the best island, nor the best looking island. But it is your island. You are attached to it as if you were on a leash. This attachment (the red line) defines the edge for you.The edge that "cut" you open and gets your soul out.And when you really get your soul out, you are getting into a bliss (the red line). Then you are hooked like a fish was pulled out and lying on the sand.

Otavio Schipper

Otavio Schipper at Anita Schwarz Galeria De Arte (Art Basel Miami Beach 2011)

Serie Diapasões / Diapason Series

This is Love.The blue fiddle bow is playing music on an amorphous body of pink innocence, red desire and blue hope. The music is feeding the main body. The bow itself is part of this body. And the bow is not exactly a bow, it is a tuning fork.It lets you to correct yourself  according to your love and hopes.The separate small figure in the right bottom corner is two circles interconnected symbolizing two persons in love.

Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler at Metro Pictures (Art Basel Miami Beach 2011)

Red, White and Blue

The first (from the left) brown line is common sense. It is depended on steel-sharp logic(the grey lines). The rightmost dark brown line is your inner desires.They are mixed with small amount of common sense and dreams(blue line). Only bold, even somewhat rough insertion of Will can turn those dreams and desires into the victory red carpet.The will spans over the logic and the common sense. The fulfillment satisfies you more than before, but the dream has gone.

Weekend Edition 4

Gustav Klimt at ArtFinder

Danae

This is a beautiful woman in love. She gives everything: her feelings, her desires, her passion. She opens up to her lover in all her insecurity, vulnerability, imperfection. And yet she is perfect, gorgeous, tender and warm. She is Sun (orange details: hair, nipples and lips). Her love is the rain of gold to the person who can make her to fall in love with him. But all of this is covered to the outsiders by cool green fabric. The cloth hides the inner softness and lovable imperfections. The outer image is perfect, cool, inaccessible, mysterious.

Sharon Bartel-Clements

Sharon Bartel-Clements at Franklin 54 Gallery + Projects

Red Wave

I would call it the affair. A woman is drowning in the routine. It drives her crazy (yellow part). She is day-dreaming, building sand castles. Now comes the Red Wave. The feelings are over flooding her. Lust. Fear to be caught. Love. Immorality. The emotional   stream overruns her.