Mixed media on canvas 9 x 12
“Throat of the Ember Wasp”
This work began as a failed attempt to trap a scream. I had woven a net of synthetic night and laid it across the last breathing ember of an extinct color—what scholars once called pyrochrome. The result was this: a snapshot of internal combustion, captured mid-confession.
The dark tendrils you see aren’t brushstrokes—they are the digestive tracts of a species of dream that feeds on rhythm. They wriggle through the fiery tissue of the piece like regret through a song you only half-remember. Beneath them, the surface pulses with solar rot: reds, yellows, and charred oranges fermenting under the tension of containment.
Some have told me they see wings in it. Others see scars. One visitor claimed it was a map to an afterlife made entirely of fractured timelines. I nodded, but said nothing. I do not speak in that gallery anymore. Not after the painting spoke first.
This piece is best viewed during solar eclipses or while submerged in lukewarm saltwater. It will hum faintly when you get too close. That’s normal. That means it knows your name.