Description
'Venus Verticordia' addresses femininity, vulnerability and the social construction of sexuality by presenting a childlike Venus in a damaged shell. This constellation critiques the sexualisation of childlike femininity and the destructive impact of mythological beauty ideals, echoing and simultaneously undoing the legacy of classical Venus images such as Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The broken shell becomes a symbol of fragmented (female) innocence and sexual trauma, so that Venus does not rise from sea foam but from the shards of reality, subtle in form yet quietly uncompromising in its statement.