Love Sours is a project conceived by Pacific Northwest poet Avery Taschen to use the human body as a canvas and to paint original poems in a mode that is both striking and temporary.

Using their usual terse style of writing, Taschen’s goal was both to express the wonders and devastations of love and to contain these emotions in a space constrained by both the physical nature of the skin and the finite temperance of paint resting on the body.

“The joy of creation was matching of words to the energy of the model,” says Tashen. “I did not want them to be a static canvas, but rather a living work of poetry. And for the words painted on them to reflect them, their mood, and their divine power.” 

In the end, the project is about the transitory nature of love and emotion and the eponymous presence of pain. Nothing lasts, and the very human need for legacy through creation is ultimately flawed.

Words by Avery Taschen

Photos by Brigitta Glanz