Secretly dreaming of you – Gustav Klimt, Urban Collage | study: The Virgin by MadameRuiz

Secretly dreaming of you – Gustav Klimt, Urban Collage | study: The Virgin is a sensual and layered mixed-media artwork in which love, desire, eroticism and romance subtly come together. In the work, a historical drawing by Gustav Klimt is visible in fine white lines, originally created around 1911/1912. It shows a nude woman lying down, with her breasts partly covered under a blanket, while her legs are wide open.
For this artwork, I used the work by Gustav Klimt: Zurückgelehnter weiblicher Halbakt, Studie zu “Die Jungfrau”, inventory number 101455, made available by Wien Museum:
https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/objekt/1484-zurueckgelehnter-weiblicher-halbakt/
In this contemporary interpretation, the classical study is given a new, dreamlike layer. Behind the reclining woman, a second female figure subtly shines through the composition. As if she is present in a thought, a memory or a secret longing. The title Secretly dreaming of you refers to that intimate feeling: a nude woman who seems to be dreaming of the woman appearing behind her. Not literally, but softly, layered and suggestive.
The combination of the reclining nude woman and the transparent female appearance in the background gives the work an atmosphere of hidden love, sensuality and romantic tension. The image feels erotic, but remains poetic and refined. The open posture of the body, the soft contours, the transparent line drawing and the dreamy collage elements make this artwork exciting without becoming explicit.
The original Klimt drawings remain recognisable in the fine linework, but are incorporated into a modern urban collage of soft colour fields, weathered textures and abstract layers. Pink, dusty pink, warm beige, grey, copper, brown, white and soft blue tones flow into one another. This gives the work an intimate, almost cinematic appearance. It feels like a moment between sleep and waking, between memory and desire, between body and dream.
Where Gustav Klimt often explored human posture, sensuality, femininity and vulnerability in his studies, this figure is given a contemporary context here. The erotic charge of the original model is combined with a modern visual language of collage, abstraction and transparency. This creates a work that feels art-historical, feminine, sensual and contemporary at the same time.
Secretly dreaming of you fits beautifully within the LGBTQIA+ community because it openly shows love between two women.
This painting may come into its own most naturally in the bedroom, but for those with a little more courage, it can also make a powerful statement in the living room.
For lovers of Gustav Klimt,