#loveofmylife/ Special Edition

Here’s to love in all its forms — the muse, the memory, the mystery — and to the artists who continue to reveal it anew.

In this special 80th edition of Collect Art Magazine, we celebrate one of the most enduring, elusive, and transformative forces that shape the human condition — love. Love has been both muse and mystery since the first pigment met the cave wall, since the first melody sought to echo the heartbeat. It binds and breaks us, transcends language, and remains the invisible thread that connects us across time, space, and culture. In this issue, we invite readers into a global dialogue of affection, intimacy, longing, and connection — a visual and emotional symphony created by artists from all corners of the world.

This milestone edition brings together artists, each contributing a unique interpretation of love’s many forms: romantic, familial, platonic, spiritual, and self-directed. Their works do not merely illustrate love; they interrogate it — its fragility, its ferocity, its ability to heal or haunt. From tender portrayals of human touch to abstract meditations on memory and loss, these artists remind us that love is not static but constantly evolving, shaped by the rhythms of our lives and the societies we inhabit.

Accompanying each artwork are in-depth biographies, artist statements, and personal interviews, offering intimate glimpses into the creators’ worlds. In their words, we encounter love as both subject and method — the impulse that drives creation, the emotion that lingers in the silence after the final brushstroke. These conversations reveal that, for many, art itself is an act of love: a way of connecting with others, of reclaiming tenderness in a fragmented world, and of finding meaning through shared vulnerability.

In this issue, love appears in unexpected places. It lives in the small gestures — a stroke of color that recalls a memory, a sculpture that captures the tension between closeness and distance, a photograph that freezes a fleeting glance between strangers. It also takes grander forms — the universal yearning for connection, the resilience of the human spirit, the courage to be seen. Each work becomes a mirror through which we recognize not only the artist’s story but our own capacity to feel deeply and to give freely.

Our featured artists span generations, disciplines, and geographies, yet all share a common pursuit: to translate the ineffable. Some explore love through myth and ritual, tracing its archetypes through history and culture. Others approach it through the lens of identity — queerness, displacement, disability, or grief — revealing love’s power to resist erasure and assert belonging. Still others turn inward, mapping the intimate terrain of solitude, heartbreak, and self-discovery. Together, their voices form a chorus that is as diverse as it is unified, reminding us that love — like art — defies borders.

In a world too often divided by fear and difference, love remains a radical act. It asks us to slow down, to care, to see beyond ourselves. The artists featured in this issue remind us that every creative gesture — no matter how small — is an act of faith in connection. Their works are love letters to humanity, written in pigment, light, fiber, and form.

As you turn these pages, we hope you find not only beauty but recognition — a reminder that love, in all its contradictions and complexities, is the essence of what it means to be human. Let this edition be a space for reflection and renewal, a gallery of emotions that transcends the visual to reach something deeper, something shared.