My boss and landlord paint my portrait, 2023

Gouache, watercolor on canvas  2x 40x50 cm

 

Handout excerpt:

“If my boss and my landlord met

would they drink to my health,

would they sing songs of me,

would they recognise me for what I am to them, which is to say, love.

Love in this arrangement is not reciprocal or does not involve mutual extraction and exchange between two or more lovers. Theirs is an unrequited love, to which I’m equally the object of desire as well as a mere conduit for their passion. They, of course, aren’t really aware of this arrangement, but if they could see it my way they’d realise that I’m merely a marriage bed on which they consummate their relationship. An intermediary, if you will, of love. Yet their particular relationship could never function without me, for it is, in fact, a love triangle comprising of my boss, on one hand, my landlord on the other and myself...”