Cattle (2024)

Cattle is a study of conformity and ritualised violence. The viewer looks down upon a circle of women in muted dresses, each nearly identical except for the one in the centre—her mouth darkened, her gaze lifted, her individuality punished.

⤷ This work was born from the language of the witch trial and the monastery, where uniformity masquerades as purity. I wanted the composition to feel both sacred and suffocating, the women forming a human enclosure around the central figure. From above, the arrangement looks almost devotional, yet it carries the weight of accusation and fear.

The title Cattle speaks to the way collectives consume their own. The women are not villains or victims alone—they are part of a cycle of obedience that sustains itself through isolation and shame. The muted palette, drawn from soil and bruised flesh tones, pushes the eye toward the single point of contrast: the pale, blood-marked face in the middle.

The perspective implicates the viewer as witness and participant. We look down upon her, sharing the gaze of the crowd. In this, the painting becomes a mirror for complicity.

Within The Damnation Project, Cattle marks a shift away from mythic horror into something more human—an examination of control, faith, and the quiet machinery of collective cruelty.