A personal story of inspiration, transformation, and a modern-day Venus.

🎨How I Created My Version of Botticelli.

✨ "God dictates — I write." — A legendary Russian poet, B.Okudzhava.

A reminder that inspiration often arrives like a whisper from the divine.

💬 Where do your ideas come from?

That's a question I've heard many times at our summer art shows.

Sometimes, I honestly don't know. And sometimes they arrive like a gust of wind.

🛫 A Night Flight, A Whirlwind of Thoughts.

📍 Return flight from Italy → Toronto

One night, as my husband and I flew home from Italy, I tried to fall asleep. But my mind wouldn't rest — it kept spinning with images from our journey.

And one image came back to me over and over again:
“The Birth of Venus.”

🖼️ Encountering Botticelli.

At the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, I frequently returned to that painting. Botticelli’s Venus stood still and glowing — not just beautiful, but mysterious, even melancholic.

There was a sadness in her eyes, as if she knew too well the world she was born into.
It made me wonder:
Isn’t a woman created to love and share love with the world?
So why does Venus seem so… heavy-hearted?

💡 A Moment of Illumination.

As memories of my own life — its ups and downs — swirled through my mind, a new vision began to take shape.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, it came to me clearly:

🔥 “Life of Venus in the Twenty-First Century.”

🎨 Bringing the Vision to Life.

In my version, Venus remains at the center, her wheat-blonde hair still dancing in the wind.

• On the right, painted in soft blues, are her girlish dreams.
  
  
• On the left, in cooler greys, her real life — filled with worries about children, school, social media, and everything modern women juggle.
  
  

The idea consumed me.
When I got home, I painted as if in a trance — driven by something bigger than me.

🖼️ Telling the whole story.

At later exhibitions, not everyone caught the Botticelli reference.
So, we printed a miniature version of the original Birth of Venus and displayed it next to my painting, along with an explanation.

Once people understood the connection, the response was amazing — full of emotion, joy, and even tears.

This painting is still part of our home collection, and I treasure it deeply.

🌐 Join Me.

If you’d like to see more of my work and follow my artistic journey, I’d love to have you.
🖼️ Visit: https://www.artbyelenag.com/artwork-gallery

 💌 Let’s stay connected — there’s so much more to share.

P.S.

Recently, I participated in an online exhibition hosted by the Gallerium platform with my Modern version of ‘’The Life of Venus in XXI.’’

I received a few reviews from some visitors and was glad, and surprised at the same time.