The Offspring II (2024)

The Offspring II (2024) serves as the haunting counterpart to The Offspring I. What began as creation has now become consequence. The mother’s light has turned to tar, her grace to grief. The child she once carried is born, but it is not human.

⤷ The composition echoes the tenderness of a Madonna portrait, yet the intimacy feels uneasy. A young woman cradles an ashen, almost fossilised infant. Her expression is serene, but her body is collapsing beneath the weight of what she’s made. Black fluid runs down her face and neck, fusing her with the child she clings to.

I wanted this piece to feel both sacred and unbearable. It captures the paradox of motherhood as both creation and destruction — the idea that to give life is to lose something of yourself. The palette is warm but suffocating, heavy with burnt golds and bruised browns that suggest sanctity turned sour.

The infant itself feels sculpted from ruin. Its body, crusted and blistered, mirrors the mother’s corruption. This isn’t a child of light but of aftermath, the physical form of what festers when devotion goes too far.

Within The Damnation Project, this work closes the maternal arc. It reflects the final stage of transformation, where love becomes indistinguishable from pain. There’s tenderness in her gesture, but it’s a tenderness that can no longer save.