Objects of Desire: An Artist in Venice

A contemporary painter finds inspiration in Venice, where the canals, art, and architecture guide her thoughts on female desire, love, grief, and memory in this hybrid work of creative nonfiction.

Alone in Venice for an artist's residency, Celia Paul began keeping an ongoing record of her painting. Objects of Desire is a mesmerizing account of her perceptions in La Serenissima and of her preoccupations there: female desire and love, mortality, and memory. "Venice resembles a collective brain...