The Couple Bubble

This painting was inspired by the poem "Married Love" by Chinese painter Guan Daosheng, a.k.a. Kuan Tao-Sheng, who lived during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

Married Love

You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
In life we share a single quilt.
In death we will share one coffin.

The painting features three different sizes of hexagons in a multi-colored play on a beehive pattern. Pink and red hexagons seem to intermingle and join together to create gold, in a pattern reminiscent of the marriage quilt described in the poem. The painting explores the "Couple Bubble" concept, as Stan Tatkin, PsyD described in his groundbreaking book on relationship psychology, Wired for Love. Here, two people join together to create something that transcends them - a couple bubble where they can both feel secure. 

16" diameter acrylic on round wood panel. 0.8 inch thick; sides painted black.