Six Premonitions of the Feminine Facade
Six Premonitions of the Feminine Facade
Spider web on paper with glass, Cicada exuviae, metal, wood, dried flora, and ritual apothecary jars with salt and incenses
23 x 22 x 16 in / 58.4 x 55.9 x 40.6 cm
2019
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Something Haunting is Brewing II — ABA Gallery - Atlanta, GA - 2019
Callanwolde 2020 — Callanwolde Fine Arts Center - Atlanta, GA - 2021
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Six Premonitions of the Feminine Facade is a deeply personal exploration of entrapment, fragility, and the eventual reclamation of self through ritual and preservation. The work serves as both a reliquary and a warning—a visual spell that captures the echoes of a fractured relationship and the transformative alchemy of will.
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At its core, a real spider web, fragile yet hauntingly intact, is suspended on black paper beneath glass. This delicate snare, simultaneously ethereal and confining, becomes a spectral symbol of emotional imprisonment. Much like the web, the artist found himself ensnared—estranged from friends, family, and his own creative passions—slowly becoming a vessel for another’s desires. The glass, a barrier both protective and impenetrable, speaks to the tension between vulnerability and self-preservation, while also transforming the once-trapping web into an artifact of control, framed and contained.
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To the right of this spectral centerpiece, a brittle composition of rotting wood, twigs, an abandoned hornet’s nest, a dried white rose, and a scattering of cicada shells clings to a rusted metal post—a relic salvaged from a former shared home. The decaying materials evoke the fragile remnants of a disintegrating bond, while the cicada shells (exuviae) symbolize the hollow residue of transformation. Their absence of life alludes to both the shedding of an old self and the lingering imprint of what was once vital. The white rose, once a symbol of unity and devotion worn as the artist’s wedding boutonniere, now preserved among these remains, transforms into an artifact of dissolution—its withered petals a memento of vows undone. This assemblage of natural decay is juxtaposed against a Con Edison construction barrier—an industrial warning sign. The stark orange and white panel cautions the viewer, symbolizing the overlooked omens of fracture and the necessary vigilance to heed them.
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Beneath the spider web, six glass reagent bottles rest in compartments housed within a custom multi-faceted black box frame—ritually burned before assembly. Each bottle contains an element associated with ceremonial magic: salt, frankincense, myrrh, copal, styrax, and Aleister Crowley’s Tetragrammaton Incense, composed of galbanum, onycha, storax, and olibanum—each representing an elemental force. The salt, recalling Crowley’s Gnostic Mass, speaks to spiritual purification: “Let the salt of Earth admonish the water to bear the virtue of the Great Sea.” It is a reminder of the alchemical power to sanctify and transform, while the incenses evoke both invocation and exorcism—a symbolic act of burning away remnants of the past while simultaneously reclaiming power through ritual.
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Ultimately, Six Premonitions of the Feminine Facade is a testament to both suffering and sovereignty. It bears witness to the slow unraveling of self within a relationship, yet also to the fire-forged resilience that emerges from it. The work captures and preserves the haunting fragility of loss but also enshrines the willful transmutation of pain into wisdom. The viewer is left with a cautionary relic—a sanctified scar—both a warning and an invocation of personal reclamation.
