Devotion (2024)

Devotion (2024) imagines love as both connection and demise. Two figures stand in the ruins of a forgotten world, their gas masks linked by a single tube. They share each other’s breath, a gesture of intimacy that also seals their fate.

⤷ This painting began as an exploration of dependency. The lovers breathe as one, yet in doing so, ensure their own suffocation. Their devotion sustains them for a moment, but not for long. I wanted the image to feel sacred and doomed at once — tenderness caught in the instant before collapse.

The palette leans toward decay: sepia, rust, and ash. Every tone feels corroded, as if the air itself is poisonous. Their clothing recalls late Victorian formality, a time when love and duty were indistinguishable. Beneath the elegance lies quiet panic, the stillness before the final breath runs out.

They are framed like a wedding portrait, but it’s a union stripped of hope. The light touches them softly, almost lovingly, though everything beyond them has already died. There’s something achingly human in their refusal to let go, even as the shared line between them becomes the cause of their end.

In this piece, devotion is not salvation. It’s the persistence of love despite knowing it will destroy you.