A Hand-Sculpted 3D Artwork on Wooden Panel
The Artwork Comes to Life
In the luminous silence of my studio, bathed in the infinite blue of the Saint Lawrence River and the vastness of the sky, something extraordinary began to emerge not from a plan, but from a breath. From a visceral, almost urgent need to express what words can never fully contain: love.
I did not paint a word. I sculpted an emotion.
On this large wooden panel, the word LOVE rises like an apparition traced not in ink or with a brush, but formed from hundreds of flowers and butterflies, each entirely sculpted by hand, one by one, petal by petal, wing by wing. Every element is unique. Every flower carries an intention. Every butterfly carries a dream.
The artwork undulates, vibrates, breathes. It is not simply observed. It is experienced.
LOVE : Its Symbolism, Its Power, Its Soul
Why LOVE ?
Because it is the one word that transcends all languages, all cultures, all wounds. It is the word we shout and the word we whisper. The one we seek for a lifetime and yet have carried within us all along.
I wanted this word to be more than read. I wanted it to be felt in the body to create a shiver, a pause, an unexpected smile.
So I built it from what nature expresses most beautifully about love’s fragile and fleeting grace : flowers that open and close with the sun, and butterflies that exist only for the span of a wingbeat — yet in that wingbeat, change everything.
There is a profound duality in this love: strength and softness, boldness and fragility, the ephemeral and the eternal. That tension is embedded in the material itself. The flowers are solid sculpted, anchored into the wood with nails and yet they seem ready to lift into the air.
The butterflies are frozen in space and yet they move, they dance, they fly. Love is exactly that: rooted and free at once.
The Colors : Each One Tells a Story
The colors in this artwork are not decorative choices. They are confessions a personal journal translated into pigments and shimmer.
Soft pink and gentle coral: love at dawn. The innocence of a first glance, the warmth of a hand held for the first time. I placed them like a secret shared quietly.
Fiery red and vibrant fuchsia: passion the racing heart, love that dares, that claims its place in the world. These tones burn softly across the surface, refusing to be ignored.
Solar yellow and luminous orange: pure joy. The laughter of a child, morning light dancing on the river, the energy that flows when one feels fully alive and deeply loved.
Tender green and emerald: hope, renewal, nature returning after winter. Love returns as well. It grows back. I believe this deeply, and these greens carry that promise.
Sky blue and midnight blue: dream and depth, the infinite space where the greatest loves unfold. Blue is also the Saint Lawrence that inspires me daily water that moves forward without retreat, like true love.
Mauve and violet: spirituality and inner transformation, the mysterious dimension of love we never completely understand yet feel deep within our bones. These hues speak to dreamers, to those seeking something greater than themselves.
Pearlescent white and creamy beige: peace the serenity of love that has weathered storms and simply remains. These tones are the silence between words, the moments when nothing more needs to be proven.
And the silver glitter scattered like fallen stars across the petals is pure magic. It is that instant when the light shifts and the artwork transforms before your eyes. It moves with you. It shines differently depending on the hour, your mood, the angle of your gaze. Love also sparkles differently each day — and that is precisely why it never fades.
The Silver Signature : A Reflection of Eternity
In the lower right corner, in delicate luminous silver, I have signed my name.
My signature is not a formality. It is an act. A commitment. A promise engraved in light.
Silver : the color of moonlight, stars, reflective mercury is both visible and discreet, powerful and humble. A precious metal that does not dominate, but reveals and amplifies what surrounds it.
That is how I see my role as an artist: not to stand before the artwork, but to serve as the channel through which something greater takes form. My silver signature says: I was here. I placed my soul within this. And now, this beauty belongs to you.
It is also a symbol of permanence. Long after words are forgotten, this artwork will continue to speak, vibrate, and move hearts. My name, traced in silver, becomes the invisible thread linking each viewer to that first breath of creation to that riverside studio where it all began.
Why This Artwork ? The Story of Its Inspiration
I remember the exact moment the idea was born. One of those days when sky and river merge at the horizon, when the air carries the final warmth of summer and the first whisper of autumn.
I watched the light shifting on the water millions of reflections dancing, never still, creating the illusion of perpetual motion.
I wanted to capture that sensation. The feeling that something is alive, something is moving, even when everything appears still.
And I thought of love.
Because love is exactly that light upon the water. It trembles. It sparkles. It transforms constantly. And yet it remains deep and constant beneath the surface.
So I began sculpting: one flower, then another, then a butterfly, then a hundred, then hundreds more. Each piece shaped by hand in a repetitive, meditative gesture like a prayer, like a mantra. Each form unique, because love is never the same twice.
I wanted the viewer to stop in their tracks. To hold their breath for a second. To feel their eyes unsure where to rest because there is so much to discover.
I wanted to offer the experience of getting lost in beauty and finding oneself in emotion.
The Duality of LOVE : Strength and Fragility
What moves me most in this sculpted love is that it carries every contradiction of real love.
The flowers are delicate their petals seeming ready to detach at the slightest breeze yet they are permanent, anchored, strong. The butterflies appear to drift toward the edges of the panel, scattered in white space, free and untouchable yet they are part of a whole, connected to something larger.
That is the truth of love. It is both the most fragile and the most resilient force that exists. A heart can break in an instant and rebuild itself, richer and deeper than before. Fragility is not weakness; it is proof that something precious is alive.
The butterflies escaping toward the margins are not fleeing. They are spreading. They carry love beyond the boundaries of the artwork into the room, into the gaze of the observer, into their day, into their life.
Art : An Absolute Necessity, An Act of Love for the World
I say this with complete conviction: art is not a luxury. Art is as essential as breathing.
In a world that moves too fast, that divides and wounds and forgets its own beauty, art is the one space where all are equal before emotion. Before this artwork, there are no borders, no languages, no differences that matter. There are simply two eyes looking, one heart feeling, and something inexplicable and magnificent unfolding between the piece and the one who beholds it.
Art reminds us that we are alive. That we are capable of tenderness, wonder, and dream. In a single glance at this LOVE of flowers and butterflies, something within us opens a door we may have forgotten , a light we thought extinguished.
That is why I create. That is why I sculpt each petal with my hands, mix each color with my soul, and sign in silver so that something of me remains in the world, continuing to bring goodness long after.
Because art unites. Art heals. Art builds bridges where everything else divides.
And this vibrant, colorful, shimmering, living LOVE is my offering to the world. My cry of joy. My act of faith in beauty, in gentleness, in the infinite human capacity to love one another.
LOVE is an invitation.
Let yourself be carried by the colors. Let the butterflies lift you. And remember that somewhere along the Saint Lawrence River, an artist sculpted this love for you so that you may never forget how beautiful life can be
https://virginie-schroeder.com
