It all started about 10 years ago when I embarked on a journey to gather inspiration for my art as well as to understand myself. I traveled to different parts of the world, ate delicious food, met different kinds of people and had a few crazy experiences! It was during this time I began to realize that being a woman influences (and continues to influence) my art and my life experience.
As a result, I started experimenting with drawing the feminine form as a way to connect to my own feminine self, as well as my emotional world. When this exploration began, I used my self as a model for many of my pieces. It was empowering for me in many ways; from accepting my body image to expressing many shades of intimate feelings and ideas. It was through these nude drawings I really began to tap into an energy that made me feel more like myself than I ever have felt. And, in turn, this lead me to explore my own definition of sensuality.
All of it unfolded so naturally…
I began to see sensuality as a warm glow a woman exudes. It’s like a perfume that floats and radiates around her. It’s an energetic dress a woman chooses to wear and it only fits her because she is that energy. And every woman has every right to feel confident in this energy.
It feels like being in love – but with yourself – in a freeing and expressive way. It is soft, natural and intimate. So much art grows and bursts forth from sensual energy; it’s like the blossoming of spring!
Through my drawings, I began to feel sensuality as a creative force. It felt invigorating and full of golden, bursting energy. I felt like I had tapped into something truly magical and realized sensuality is nothing like what society and culture define it to be.
As I continued to shape my own interpretation of sensuality with each drawing I created, I felt like I was digging deeper and deeper into a feminine truth that was eagerly springing to the surface, and I felt empowered.
The more I drew the feminine form, the more I saw how sensuality in women was (and still is) an uncomfortable topic for people in many cultures throughout the world. It’s condemned, feared, and pushed down. It’s lead me to conclude that there is an overall repressed energy in the world when it comes to sensuality, especially when it’s about feminine energy.
Interestingly though, when I shared this kind of subject matter through my art with women they actually responded in a positive way, so much so that they would feel it was themselves they were seeing reflected in my work. Their responses were pure fuel for inspiration!
I felt I had tapped into something essential, something that flows through and interconnects women.
It made me feel that perhaps all women do indeed see or feel themselves, whether secretly or openly, to be a sensual woman. Whether they are consciously connected to this truth or not is up to the individual woman. But, after many sensual drawings later and speaking to different women from young to middle aged, I do believe all women have a Venus energy inside of them. And with each drawing I make I feel like I am re-defining the traditional Venus that was created from the imagination of the male artist, and shifting it to the inner Venus that lies inside of the everyday woman.
