Wynnie Mynerva: The Anatomy of Love and the Art of Absence

In Berlin this winter, Société opens its doors to a conversation that feels as old as humanity itself. Love, that elusive construct of longing and loss, becomes both subject and substance in the first German solo exhibition of Peruvian artist Wynnie Mynerva. Titled Dust of Love, the exhibition is less an exploration of affection and more an excavation of its myths, a study in how love has been shaped, framed, and fractured through the eyes of power, religion, and desire.

Born and raised in Villa El Salvador, a district on the edges of Lima marked by social struggle and resilience, Mynerva brings a personal history into every stroke. Their practice, which moves fluidly between painting, performance, video, and even body modification, is as much about resistance as it is about revelation. The work does not simply depict the body, it interrogates it. It questions what has been imposed upon it through faith, through colonial legacies, through the silent architecture of expectation.

At the centre of Dust of Love is a vast oil painting that commands attention. It does not just occupy space, it consumes it. Within its layered composition unfold scenes of passion, surrender, and reflection. A body merges with another in what the artist describes as a myth, the desperate attempt to become one. Another figure appears to dissolve into a translucent form, suggesting love as a kind of inscription, the act of being shaped by another’s gaze. The imagery recalls the compositional gravity of the Old Masters, yet Mynerva’s world is far from nostalgic. It is a rebellion against the Western ideal of love as unity, exposing instead the absence that sits quietly beneath its promise.

Across this canvas, the echoes of Catholic ritual and colonial history linger. The work bears witness to how spiritual doctrine and imperial force have long dictated the experience of desire in Latin America. Through their brush, Mynerva turns this inheritance inside out. Love, here, is not a gentle confession; it is an act of confrontation, a reimagining of what it means to touch, to yearn, to see oneself reflected and distorted in another.

Framing this central piece are four smaller portraits of women who look on, witnesses rather than subjects. Each one stands independently, armed or marked, carrying both injury and strength. They are the keepers of their own stories, embodiments of survival and defiance. In these works, Mynerva’s reflection on violence turns intimate, revealing a quiet persistence that refuses to be subdued.

What unfolds within the gallery is not simply an exhibition, it is a meditation on absence. Mynerva asks what remains when the body no longer performs the illusion of completeness. What is left when love’s image collapses and all that survives is yearning, pleasure, the silent exchange between witness and wound.

Dust of Love is on view at Société in Berlin from 7 November 2025 to 17 January 2026. It stands as an invitation to question what we know of love, not as an ideal to be reached, but as a space of loss, resistance, and becoming.