Artist’s Note:
This diptych is a modern, plasticky reconstruction of a Baroque-period painting by Janssens, “Ceres, Bacchus, and Venus.” In the original, which might have been commissioned by a Dutch brewery, the classical mythological creatures are having a good time; everything is meant to be idyllic. 
My painting is placid as well, but only on the surface. There is a sense of aggression hidden in the energies of the composition — in the gestures and the limbs of the green Cupid meme in front of Venus’s face. (In the original painting, this Cupid looks out of scale and up to no good.) The attempts to cover that hostile energy with sweetness, like the colored bubbles floating in the air, only underline that the world is a messed-up place.

Abraham Janssens Ceres, Bacchus and Venus. (c. 1605-c. 1615)