Ashes of the Underworld

The rendering imagines the underworld not as a single destination but as a place suspended between endings and continuations. Ruins, braziers, and exposed ground all suggest a world that is still trying to remake itself without ever becoming whole.

That tension is what gives the image its weight. It is not simply ancient or devastated; it is caught in the act of ongoing aftermath.

Created during the pandemic in Chicago, the piece carries the emotional suspension of that moment. The solitary figure, the distance in the composition, and the persistent fire all reflect a creative life waiting for a new stage to appear.

The result is part classical reference and part contemporary emotional document, with myth used as a structure for processing isolation.