To Each Our Own

Two people can share one bed, one life — and still each carry a world the other will never fully enter. This work is about why that is not a sadness, but the thing that keeps love alive.

A couple lies side by side, each with an inner world that rises and flows in its own rhythm. Their bodies lean close; their minds wander along separate paths. That contrast is the whole piece. The work suggests unity without ever merging the two figures into one — each claims personal ground, and the space between them speaks as loudly as their closeness.

Look at that space between the bodies before you look at anything else. I left it open on purpose: it is not distance, it is room. Bold black lines shape the figures; soft shading carries their feeling; the white of the paper is allowed to breathe.

I made this work in 1998, in my own printmaking technique using plastic as a matrix, and in more than twenty-five years it has never stopped being true. What I wanted to say then, I still believe: relationships grow strongest when we honour each person's own truth — when two people grow side by side rather than dissolving into each other. Together, and still ourselves.

Some viewers see a long marriage in it. Some see a beginning. Both are right; the work holds both.

Fine art print, artist's own technique · 40 × 50 cm · 1998 · Signed limited edition · Printed on Fabriano paper · Certificate of authenticity · $300, shipping included · Shipped in a tube

If you know two people who are strong in exactly this way — or if you are one of them — this work says it better than a card ever could. And if you'd like to know more about how it's printed, write to me. I answer personally.