Incubus Incursion: The Whisper (2024)

The Whisper opens the Incubus Incursion triptych, capturing the first breach between the sacred and the profane. A moment of false revelation unfolds, suspended between beauty and horror.

⤷ The scene is painted in the language of classical ascension, echoing the compositions of Baroque altarpieces. Figures rise in light, their garments swept upward as if caught in divine wind. Yet the more one looks, the more the scene fractures. Behind the luminous figures lurks a shadowed presence, half-hidden among cherubs and folds of fabric. Its features are human but drained of life, a reminder that holiness often carries its own corruption.

This first piece in the triptych explores temptation in its most deceptive form: the sacred whisper. It’s not violence that enters, but suggestion. The expression of the central woman walks the edge between awe and dread. She looks upward, illuminated by a warm, false light, while the child beside her points to something unseen—something that the viewer, and perhaps she, should not be looking at.

I wanted the painting to feel like revelation turned sour. The reds bleed into the whites, the flames almost disguising themselves as light. Every soft detail conceals something malignant.

In the context of The Damnation Project, The Whisper represents the opening act of intrusion - the point where divine devotion falters and something darker begins to speak through it.