About the Artwork
For a long time, I couldn’t find my voice. I had no style my art could call home. Nothing that resonated with me on a cellular level or shook me to my core. My work was like a wayward butterfly, flitting from pretty thing to pretty thing but it felt superficial to me.
And then one day, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.
Art became more than an obsession. It became a mission. Purpose. Not just a pretty color palette but a battle cry I’m screaming with my brushstrokes.
And that’s how my Titans were born.
It started with this first piece called Burdened Beasts, an inversion of Beasts of Burden. Like many people in our century, I too have been consumed in the never ending wheel of live-to-work culture and often feel crushed by it.
I recently saw a meme that said “I quit my 9 to 5 so I could work from home. Now I work 24/7”. Our society barrels full-steam in this direction where people need not only one job, but two and a side hustle to survive. We work and work and work, often eating our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners in front of a screen. We wake up and rush to our computers, pumping ourselves full of caffeine to keep our eyes open.
In Burdened Beasts, I feel the grind, anxiety, and despair of the whole thing. A detail with particular meaning to me is the needle and thread (top right) because although he’s sewn his eyebrows back on in an attempt at normalcy, one tug and the whole thing will come unraveled.
I hope it resonates with you in some way – and that if you are someone who has found yourself consumed by live-to-work culture – that you know you aren’t alone.