Flora Yukhnovich: Thirst Trap

Flora Yukhnovich is acclaimed for paintings that, fluctuating between abstraction and figuration, transcend painterly traditions to fuse high art with popular culture and intellect with intuition. While in the past she has adopted the language of Rococo, dynamically reimagining aspects of works by eighteenth-century artists such as Tiepolo, Boucher, Lancret and Watteau, new paintings draw upon various depictions of the Roman goddess Venus in mythology, art history and contemporary culture.

Rather than focus on individual points of reference, each work synthesises a multitude of influences that convey the shifting representations and significations of Venus herself. Here the Venus who embodies idealised female form and is goddess of love, maternal care, sexual reproduction and erotic desire, meets the Venus of violent origin and hybrid gender – promiscuous and vengeful.