Artwork title : Early Days

Early Days is conceived as a multisensory immersion into the unnerving rise of authoritarian sentiment in the contemporary United States. The painting’s highly textural surface built from acrylic, oil, and cold wax creates a shifting landscape where organic forms appear to bud, twist, and mutate. What first seems ethereal or embryonic slowly reveals an undercurrent of instability: a visual metaphor for the subtle, early-stage creep of fascistic ideology as it threads itself through civic life.

This work is activated through sound, scent, and sculptural presence. The pulsing rhythm of El Profesor’s “Bella Ciao” (Hugel Remix) injects both resistance and foreboding, echoing a historic anthem now refracted through a modern beat. The accompanying encaustic sculpture, The Crosses We Bear, built from discarded plastics and textiles, serves as a material reminder of the burdens both personal, political and environmental which we collectively carry and too often ignore.

Scent notes of clove, cinnamon, rosemary, eucalyptus, and lemon drift through the space, anchoring the viewer in a visceral present. Together, these elements invite a heightened awareness: an embodied recognition that what appears delicate or distant can quickly take root. Early Days asks us to look closely, to sense deeply, and to acknowledge the warning signs before they harden into permanence.