Tenebris Solis (2025)

Tenebris Solis—Latin for “the darkened sun”—depicts a woman cradling a dying celestial body as though it were a lover or a relic. The sun’s surface is cracked and stone-like, its face human, mournful, and collapsing inward, while her own blackened tears streak down to meet it. Together, they form an image of grief so luminous it almost burns.

⤷ This piece contemplates devotion in its most ruinous form: the tenderness we offer to things that are already destroying us. The woman’s gesture is one of intimacy, not worship; she presses her cheek to the smouldering face, unflinching as her own skin begins to scorch. The scene is apocalyptic but personal, cosmic yet claustrophobic.

Visually, the painting fuses religious iconography with celestial decay. The halo, a recurring symbol of sanctity, has become a ring of fire, consuming both figure and god alike. Her robes echo Renaissance drapery, but her tears are tar, thick and irreversible. The title’s contradiction, “Dark Sun,” encapsulates the essence of The Damnation Project: radiance as suffering, illumination as exposure.

This work functions as a quiet climax of the series, a moment of surrender rather than rebellion. It’s not about loss of faith, but about the unbearable endurance of still loving what’s already gone.