Two faces.
One possibility of renewal.
One face looks down, pensive. The other looks up and forward, optimistic. In Janus of Love, an ancient form becomes a meditation on love’s endings and beginnings.
Endings and beginnings
George Petrides gives the idea sculptural form through two faces: one turned towards the disappointments of the past, the other towards the possibility of renewal. Love can end without closing the future, and disappointment need not end our capacity to love again. Read the full Artist’s Statement ↗
A woman’s face, twice
Janus of Love is a portrait of a woman. Both faces are drawn from Thalia, a head modelled on the artist's mother, and the concept was created by Silvia Schwarzer. The work belongs to International Women's Day, an occasion built over more than a century by women who were refused, and did not close down: who trusted again and kept faith with a future they had every reason to doubt. The sculpture honours that same refusal at the scale of one heart. To look back at a love that ended, and then to look forward and love again.
Thalia, doubled
Petrides gives Thalia a double form, joining two different emotional states in a single sculpture. The work considers transformation: taking past hurt and metabolising it into love.
The making
A custom blue patina lies over a brass coating. Beneath the surface is recycled PETG, salvaged from medical packaging and printed on a large-format machine designed and built by the artist and his team. The printed form is then reworked by hand.
- Year
- 2026
- Height
- 88 cm, excluding base
- Diameter
- 65 cm
Editions and enquiries: Explore editions ↗ · studio@petrides.art
