Inspired by the ancient tale “The Metamorphoses” by Apuleius, devotion here is not passive submission, but an inner unfolding that takes shape only through courage, vulnerability, and trust. The work captures the moment when the soul surrenders to love not merely as desire, but as the law of its own being. The gaze upon the beloved becomes a gaze upon the principle of love itself, a state of being “inflamed with desire for desire”.

Devotion reveals this threshold, where the human heart hovers between fear and revelation, the liminal space in which devotion means not possession, but opening. A state of opening that allows for fusion. 
The tension in the painting awakes the trials inherent in this process: love demands transformation, a passage through shadow. Only by experiencing and enduring uncertainty does the alchemical shift occur. The ego is shed, the former identity transcended. What remains is a radical presence of being: a complete surrender to connection. Devotion does not end, but begins. It gestures toward the immortal union in which love becomes one’s own nature, and devotion is no longer risk, but homecoming. The work points to the fruit of true devotion, not fulfillment in another, but the flowering of one’s own inner self: 
Love as a state of consciousness.

Available now:
Art Card – 5 × 7 in
art print – 11×14 in, 12×16 in
Printed on premium uncoated cotton paper with a natural, organic feel.

Artprint requests to reca.smith.art@gmail.com