Deprivation (2024)

Deprivation continues my exploration of isolation and aftermath within the Desolation cycle. A single rose stands against a fractured skyline, stripped of its vitality but not its form. The composition plays with the language of survival — how beauty lingers even when its environment no longer sustains it.

The work draws heavily on the iconography of resurrection and loss. The rose, once a symbol of love and vitality, here becomes emblematic of deprivation itself: beauty that persists only through defiance. Its bloom is dry, its stem fragile, yet it refuses collapse. I wanted the viewer to feel both admiration and unease — that strange duality of life still visible in decay.

Set within a barren cityscape, the piece reflects an inner landscape as much as a physical one. The emptiness of the horizon mirrors emotional desolation — the aftermath of something once alive, now quiet. Deprivation is not about death, but endurance without nourishment; it captures the thin line between resilience and resignation.

Painted digitally in muted tones of ochre, grey, and umber, Deprivation uses atmospheric perspective and minimal composition to amplify solitude. The central rose is rendered with controlled realism, while the background dissolves into painterly abstraction — a play between the tangible and the forgotten. The desaturated palette and softened lighting evoke a world drained of warmth, allowing the flower to serve as both subject and remnant.