Totems
& Talismans.
The paintings have a physical sibling practice — characters pulled out of the canvas and built in the round. Two scales, one project.
A talisman is small — made to be held in your hand. A totem is big — built at the scale of a person, made to be stood in front of. Same demons, different distance.
Both are pulled directly from the visual vocabulary of the paintings — crowned heads, skulls, hands, halos, the figures with arms half-raised between worship and surrender.
Three characters that have already left the canvas. Two sculpted large in resin and paint — totems; one printed small and hand-finished — the first talisman. The seed of the longer practice: painting and object speaking the same vocabulary.
The Apophis talisman, end to end. Same character as the painting's orange figure with arms raised between worship and surrender — pulled out of the canvas, modelled, printed, and finished by hand.
One object. Four stages. About 35 × 18 × 47 mm at the finished size — small enough to hold in your hand and look back at you.
Three objects exist today: one hand-sized 3D-printed Apophis — the first talisman prototype, finished by hand — and two larger one-off sculpts (Mr. Happy, a full-body painted skeleton; Untitled, a standing figure with the brain showing through the skull). All studio pieces so far.
The talisman editions and the life-sized totems are both still ahead — this is the direction, not the inventory yet. What follows is where it's going.
The totems are bigger than the hand. The same characters that live inside the paintings — the crowned heads, the skeletons with money in their teeth, the dollar-sign chains, the figures with arms half-raised between worship and surrender — pulled out of the canvas and built at life size.
In wood, metal, and reflective surface. Objects you don't hold in your hand but stand inside and in front of — the polished face of the work giving you back your own.
They are built to be encountered alongside the paintings in exhibition — so a visitor doesn't just look at the fear but walks up to it and meets their own reflection in it — and, for the right collector, acquired as monumental sculpture. Painting on the wall. Totem at the door. Same source, different distance.
The thesis stays the same: the profane faced honestly becomes profound. The demon you've been carrying is the demon looking back. Meet it eye to eye.
The talismans are the hold-in-your-hand pieces — the small characters, finished well and released as limited editions of around 300 per character: collectors' objects priced for what they are. The figure you keep within reach while the painting you love hangs across town in someone else's room. Death, small enough to hold.
Only the Apophis prototype exists so far. When the first edition opens, the studio list below hears first.