‘Love Kills’ photo shop illustration by Angela Zafiris

Being loved can give us strength, but if the wrong person is loving us, then it can kill us.. so be careful who you give your heart out to.

The inspiration behind my digital collage was the ‘Economist’ magazine cover featuring the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite holding a pistol aimed at-not at me but at the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  The image of Aphrodite de milo as well as her reputation has suffered rampant abuse by many European publications in recent years. Her image ‘hijacked’, and defaced to serve up hostile messages from science and business magazines that were targeting financially strapped Greece.  The irony in all this is that we are not talking about love, but about money. They could have used Hermes who is the god of commerce, financial gain and he’s also the messenger so it would be more fitting to use him to deliver the message, but instead the goddess of love was used. Is it because business people love money? So with so much hostility for Greece why didn’t they use (abuse) Ares the God of war? The many statues of Ares are very famous too. A few are located at the same museum, the Louvre in Paris, as the ‘Aphrodite de milo’. Perhaps Ares wasn’t used because he looks too strong to represent Greeks. On the other hand, Aphrodite looks more vulnerable because she is a woman and nude.  I know it’s sexist, but we are living in a hostile patriarchical society.. so I guess I just answered my previous question.

I guess a small positive side in all of this is that it inspired my art. I thought I would use her image as well and put her in a more fitting scene where she is not out of her element since she was born in the ocean.

I laughed a lot when I saw this cover. Yes, I will make your day!

And the award for the rudest cover of them all goes to..