Through deep nostalgia and raw scenes of intimacy, Vancouver based artist Ethan Barry wants to capture the viewer’s imagination. In his images spectators become voyeurs, looking at scenes of vibrant sexuality and dreamlike vignettes of desire and longing.
Barry creates scenarios where any viewer feels entrapped by the vigorous, yet affectionate eroticism that his characters represent. Among the tangled sheets of messy beds, we find a parade of lovers who at times look as wild as stallions or as vulnerable as feathers against the wind.
Barry’s work features scenes that depict nearly all of the stages of romance. From desire that becomes lust, that eventually turns into nostalgia. Men are not only flesh. They lurk the frames as specters, passionate lovers who can vanish from the room in any second.
He presents sexuality as raw as it can be, focusing on the inherent violence of thrusting and groping another human being. Yet he gracefully captures the subtle emotions that hide behind the most unconscious of our movements.
Although these men don’t utter words, it’s clear how they relate to each other through their bodies. They speak to each other with kisses, caresses, and embraces. It’s as if they were engaging in a secret dialogue they can only hear. Can you guess what they are saying to each other?
Lust and love don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Still, some of us can’t truly tell the difference between the two until it’s too late. What makes us understand this discrepancy is the pain of loneliness. It’s mix of feelings, of being used and foolish. It’s about trying to wipe away our memories. But there’s a part of us that craves for their warmth, even if we know it was only an illusion.
Yet, sometimes we unconsciously know we don’t need anything else in the world except the person next to us. Feeling their warmth against ours, thinking of how slowly their sweat drips from of their body. In that moment in which we just know exactly what emotion we’re living. It’s love, pure and simple as it is. We don’t need to feel poetic. It’s just a flow that emanates and takes hold. In Barry’s work, characters look perplexed by their overwhelming emotions. Yet, in some of the scenes, it’s clear that there’s no other way of explaining that beautiful phenomenon.
Can there be anything more painful than unrequited love? Becoming vulnerable is a crucial part to the game, and if you’re not willing to let go of your ego, you will end up harmed emotionally. What we need is just to understand the other’s experience. Once it starts haunting you at home, it will claim your sleep. To love uncontrollably we must acknowledge the inevitable disappearance of love itself.
Through lines of red and blue, Barry portrays beautiful stories of love through their intimate, day to day details. He focuses on the specifics, expressing how love is not built on the grandiloquent, but in sharing ordinary moments.
If you enjoyed viewing Ethan Barry’s luscious illustrations, take a look at the erotic paintings that show the heavenly side to orgasm, and the guilty pleasures in minimalist illustrations.
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You can follow more of Ethan Barry on his website and Instagram (@gaptoothb)
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Ethan Barry
