Nova Venus

This feverish and provocative original illustration by Mahlon Blaine appears to date to the late 1930s, when the artist was mining the myth of Aphrodite for Nova Venus, a series of artworks illustrating a poem written by Blaine that interrogates the relationship between love, lust, and modernism. Characteristically dark, and replete with complicated and even bizarre symbolism, this gouache and ink painting explores fertility, […]