The Lovers

This artwork wasn't a planned composition. It was a moment that found me.
 
I'd wandered down to the shoreline alone while my now ex boyfriend stayed behind to watch football in a tacky sports bar. We were not aligned! Vanity Beach, Southern Sardinia stretches for almost a kilometre and was almost completely empty. Then this couple walked to the edge of the sea just a few metres away from where I was sitting. Typical.
 
Standing quietly together, wrapped up in each other, they embodied something I was longing for: one of our deepest human needs—to be chosen, held and cherished by a loving partner.
 
Sometimes life has an extraordinary way of placing exactly what we're missing—right in front of us. At the time, it felt unbearably cruel.
 
Back in my home studio I returned to that photograph using the cyanotype process. I hand-painted the movement of the waves onto the negative before exposing the print, allowing the sea to become as much a part of the work as the figures themselves.
 
Although born from a deeply personal moment, The Lovers is about every person who has ever watched love from a distance, wished for deeper connection and dared to hope that one day they too would find it.
 
Knowing the story behind the artwork reveals that The Lovers is more than just a romantic image. It contains intimacy and solitude at the same time. While the title points to the couple in the sea, the emotional centre of the work is the unseen person behind the camera. Ultimately, it speaks to the almost universal human desire for connection, intimacy, belonging—and to be chosen.