Cupid's Favourites 2018

Curator: This drawing by Danil Nemirovsky is entitled "Cupid's Favourites," created in 2018 using ink. Editor: It's… intense. There's something about the direct gaze and the barrage of arrows that creates a feeling of vulnerability but also defiance. Curator: The title itself, "Cupid's Favourites," sets up a duality. On one hand, the arrows symbolize love, but the figure is pierced, almost overwhelmed by them. Is this about the pain inherent in love, or perhaps a critique of its contemporary representations? Editor: I think you are right about that ambivalence of this cultural construction around romance. But I also wonder about the choice of depicting Cupid, the Roman God of Love, with such… non-idealized features. This isn't your Renaissance cherub. What's Nemirovsky trying to disrupt, and is there an assertion about contemporary identity and belonging at play? Curator: That disruption might be part of a larger visual language. Consider the array of objects—what look like keys and branches—projecting from behind the figure. Are these talismans or instruments? Each element feels laden with possible meaning. Perhaps this a commentary on both romantic love and desire, in relation to self-identification. Editor: Right. Those keys... they could symbolize access, or being locked out. The way they're juxtaposed with natural elements – those raw-looking tree branches–creates a symbolic interplay between built systems and our inherent wilderness. Curator: Precisely. Also, consider the technique itself. The precision of the ink drawing gives it an almost anatomical quality, a dissection of love and longing. This figure is bearing not only wounds, but almost seems burdened by meaning, a palimpsest of sorts, carrying markings that trace time, like the symbolic keys. Editor: Agreed. What is exposed resonates: How the individual is shaped and affected by layers of cultural associations. This isn’t a romantic ideal but perhaps a re-examination of what love and desire and connection are doing to bodies right now. Curator: Well, thinking about that symbolic dimension does recast this Cupid less as a god of affection and more as a symbol of vulnerability and complex emotion. Thank you, that helped me to unpack some layers, there. Editor: And your comments around symbolic imagery helps to articulate some of the ideas around that tension: pain, access, wildness… A powerful image indeed.