“The Birth of Venus” is my attempt to respect the original mythological account of the aquatic birth of an ancient Greek goddess. The myth describes her bursting forth from within an oceanic fermentation caused by a mutilation of a Titan by his son which sent his blood spilling into the sea. Hesiod describes it this way: “for all the bloody drops…were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in there grew a maiden. Her gods and men all call her the foam-born goddess Aphrodite" (I took from this dark account the notion that beauty could emerge from violence when given an assist from a poetic imagination). I worked with loaded brushes wet into wet to create a field of surging waves where eventually a crimson Venus came into being.