"Erick Stow: The Picasso of Canada"
-Connoiseur Magazine, 2025
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Profits Move Mountains
36 x 48” Oil on canvas, gallery framed
Erick Stow
$21,000
Profits Move Mountains marks my first foray into realism—a culmination of four decades of artistic pursuit. What began as a childhood fascination matured slowly, crystallizing in a profound dream I had in 2011 after working on a music video for electric violinist Dr. Draw. In that dream, I was everything: light, trees, walls, the whole street. That moment marked the beginning of my journey toward depicting reality not just visually, but spiritually.
The spark that ignited my dedication to realism came from an unexpected place—the bonus features of the THX 1138 DVD. I learned that George Lucas once traded paintings with his collaborators. One of those works—an early depiction of R2-D2 and C-3PO holding hands in a surreal desert landscape—was so arresting, it shifted my direction. It wasn’t just the technique. It was the possibility of telling real human truths through imagined forms. That was the moment I knew realism was the destination, even if the road would take 20 years.
By 2023, while studying at UBC, that dream found form in Profits Move Mountains. I evaluated its worth by accounting for every square inch at minimum wage—a symbolic gesture to recognize the unseen labor artists perform. The total: over $50,000. This valuation, while modest by corporate standards, is radical in a market where artists are often expected to undersell their work at $2–3 per square inch. When it debuted at Art Vancouver in the Hyatt, its price had to be listed at half that amount—not to undervalue the work, but to avoid financially dwarfing those around it. This, too, is part of the message.
The painting has since taken on political overtones. In Vancouver, and across Canada, profit has moved more than mountains—it has displaced communities. Investor-owned homes sit empty. Cultural and artistic spaces face similar fates. A gallery of white walls with art no one engages with becomes not unlike a vacant condo: sterile, silent, and devoid of life. Profit without cultural investment hollows the soul of a nation. We must have at least a 2% cultural tax, and these units must be flooded with Canadian artwork as soon as humanly possible.
As our culture becomes increasingly obsessed with polish—glass screens, minimalist aesthetics, digital reflections—the humanity within us gets scrubbed out. Realism is my rebellion against that sterility. My art reclaims texture, imperfection, and emotional truth.
I have not yet sold a painting for $50,000. But I believe that in an era where the most expensive works are tied to past prestige or political utility, Profits Move Mountains demands its value through the story it tells and the future it imagines.
The value of emptiness is a holocaust. This painting, I hope, is a call to fill the void.
Temptations of The Power
72” x 48”
Oil on Canvas
$30,000 (SOLD)
2025
Erick Stow
In this work, I meditate on the sigil of Zepar—one of the 72 spirits of Solomon’s Goetia and a demon associated with lust, seduction, and illusion. Before an artist can tap into the deeper layers of energetic or symbolic power, one must first pass through distorted reflections: sigils from the Necronomicon, the outer gates. These sigils offer familiarity, but with warped logic—diverting seekers from the path of divine truth.
“Temptations of The Power” explores this journey toward understanding, both mythic and personal. I reflect on the iconography of demons and angels, where confronting shadow becomes necessary before reaching light. This duality parallels my own path through the art world and into the metaphysical—seeking higher consciousness (Christ or Buddha mind) through unrelenting creative will.
The painting was created as part of a spiritual unraveling that began years prior during a pivotal art installation in L.A., when I painted a labyrinth across 77,777 square inches. Around that time, a mysterious figure—who I believe was Erykah Badu—entered my life under the pseudonym “Ruth McArthur.” Her encouragement pulled me into a world of elite creatives, yet also forced me to confront my deepest insecurities, artistic readiness, and undiagnosed neurodivergence. Our exchange culminated in a strange test: she asked me to write about what it meant to be Muslim.
Instead of submitting a formal essay, I answered on canvas. The result is this painting—a layered and emotional exploration of divine temptation, cultural misunderstanding, and personal growth. It includes iconographic language from the Qur’an, angelic and demonic hierarchies, and my own spiritual path through failure, psychedelics, legal battles, and creative rebirth.
This work marks the turning point in my story: from a scattered talent with a cursed gift to an artist willing to stand in the fire of contradiction and beauty.
Rose Commute in Cubic Motionism
24” x 34” — Oil on canvas
2025
Erick Stow
$1,225 CAD
Artist Statement:
The rose period is always a gift to the cubist—it’s a way of seeing the world through rose-colored perception. Painted in the style of Cubic Motionism, a visual philosophy I began developing in 2015, this piece frames the energy of urban movement from a bird’s-eye perspective. It attempts what photography and video cannot: to capture the simultaneity of perception, memory, and emotion as we rush past lives, buildings, and fleeting gestures.
Like Picasso’s break from realism to explore the limits of mechanical sight, Rose Commute in Cubic Motionism resists stillness. When we move through cities, buildings warp at the edges of our vision. Faces drift by—some too grotesque to forget, others too beautiful. The camera cannot document these distortions of perception. But painting can.
Silver pigment—distinct from color—plays a key role in this piece. It acts like a mirror, drawing the viewer into a dance of reflection and motion. The work is meant to be walked around, even danced with. As you shift left or right, the motion embedded in the image activates. You don’t just see it—you feel it.
Love Hirst
Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in. (Framed)
2024
Erick Stow
$750
This work is a stylistic homage—a return to a visual language that first captivated me in the early 2010s. Inspired by Damien Hirst, particularly his lesser-known explorations from the 1990s, the piece reflects my early fascination with color and its psychological impact. While Hirst is best known for provocative works such as the diamond-encrusted human skull and cross-sectional resin sculptures of animals, it was his bold engagement with color—often divorced from texture—that first spoke to me, much like the raw emotional resonance I once felt encountering Jackson Pollock.
The first painting I created in this style, also 12 x 16 inches, marked a turning point in my life. Completed in 2011, it preceded a pivotal move to Montreal and quickly became one of the most significant works in my collection at that time. The next evolution in the style coincided with an invitation to a behind-the-scenes experience with Cirque du Soleil performers—an unexpected moment of validation—guided by the esteemed designer Yves Jean Lacasse.
Over time, the abstraction gave way to form. I began incorporating shapes inspired by puzzle pieces—symbols of connection, alignment, and personal resonance. The idea was born from a deeply personal relationship during my university years. My partner affectionately referred to me as her “puzzle piece,” noting how our bodies fit together seamlessly. After our parting, I revisited that imagery as a form of catharsis, allowing the emotional charge to flow into the work.
This piece is also a reflection of my autodidactic journey into oil painting. The process was meditative: experimenting with the mixing and blending of hues, intentionally combining colors that conventionally clash—challenging aesthetic norms in order to elevate art beyond design. Yet, despite the deliberate chaos, each composition ultimately finds its own equilibrium. There is a harmony innate to the act of creation itself.
Damien Hirst Design represents a fusion of influence, experience, and emotion—an abstract puzzle whose pieces fall perfectly into place.
Kickflip Cake in Motionism
Aprox 9” x 32.5” Oil on Wood with mixed media texture
Erick Stow
2025
$3,333
With my proprietary style—Motionism—I explore the space where movement, memory, and material converge. This sculptural work pays homage to both my youth and the culture of skateboarding. A skateboard is more than a toy or a vehicle; it is a sculptural object that often features flat, two-dimensional artwork and serves a deeply utilitarian function: play.
In my younger years, I spent a lot of time on a board—not to master tricks, but to get from A to B. Skateboarding was my mode of transport and a personal ritual. Tricks always eluded me. Despite hours of trying, I could never quite synchronize movement and timing. Growing up in Lubbock, Texas, where there were no proper skateparks, we improvised. We skated drainage ditches. One, dubbed the “Cowbowl,” had a 45° angle that slammed into the ground with no curve. There was no gentle push into the ride—just peer pressure and gravity. Older boys took me there. I had to drop in.
Skateboarding was also a bond between me and my older brother. If you connect with this piece, you may know that feeling—how skating forged friendships and changed shape over time, from physical stunts in the street to hours spent playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater on the GameCube.
This work began with a discarded board, which I transformed by applying a dense, textured building medium and frosting it like a cake—sweet, sculptural, and celebratory. I let it sit, settle, and harden over weeks before adding my oil painter’s touch. The process speaks to time, patience, and nostalgia. The result is a convergence of hard and soft, industrial and intimate.
I landed a kick flip once, and no one saw it. The title says it all. It’s about achievement without validation, growth without applause, and the quiet poetry of effort.
Rose Tinted Daydream 1
27.25” x 52.25”
Oil on canvas
Erick Stow
2025
Suggested Price: $1,850
A decade after my early experiments with abstract technique—guided in part by the visual chaos of Jackson Pollock and the conceptual boldness of Damien Hirst—my own surrealist style began to emerge. Its first public voice came in 2015 at Hyper Flow, a yoga café on Fairfax Avenue in L.A.’s Miracle Mile. They called it Motionism.
I don’t claim to invent new forms—but I do pursue original conclusions through deeply personal exploration. By blending abstraction, symbolism, and cultural critique, I aim to create work that feels timeless yet undeniably contemporary—images that draw viewers in and linger with them long enough for meaning to take hold.
Rose Tinted Daydream 1 is suffused with warmth—an emotional palette that echoes Picasso’s Rose Period: tender, elevated, hopeful. It’s a visual meditation on optimism in an age of cynicism. But the term “rose-tinted” is also wielded critically here, to challenge the systems that shape our built and cultural environments.
This painting questions the logic—and ethics—of permitting foreign capital to buy up local real estate while artists, cultural workers, and communities are left displaced and undervalued. Why do we support speculative investment in land, but not in the soul of our cities?
There is something sacred in any exchange rooted in love—whether between people or between people and place. When culture is created from character, not convenience, something lasting takes shape. The future isn’t built solely on transactions. It’s built on connection.
We stand on land scarred by colonial violence. That’s a truth we carry. But we don’t need to uphold systems of hollow diplomacy. Art still matters. Culture still matters. And love—deep, enduring, non-transactional love—still matters.
Imagine a city where empty walls of vacant properties hold works of art. Place a tax on speculation, and let the beauty of community bloom.
Dawn of the Glitch
Oil on canvas with mixed media: gold/rose gold foil, paper, cellophane, holographic seal, and epoxy
2024–2025
Price: $6,800 (or bidding start at $5,600 minimum)
Accepting serious offers. Collector interest encouraged.
Artist Statement:
Dawn of the Glitch marks one of the first entries in my ongoing exploration of what I call the anatomy of a glitch—a symbolic and forensic study of how aesthetics, branding, and cultural symbols are engineered to shape and distort perception.
At the heart of the piece is the orb—a recurring motif in my work representing comfort and security. Rounded forms in visual design tap into primal instincts: what is soft invites touch, ingestion, trust. The orb echoes the tarot pentacle: a sign of wealth, safety, earth. But what if that comfort is synthetic? What if safety is just another illusion sold back to us?
My background in advertising taught me that beauty can be a weapon—seduction masquerading as sincerity. Consider the orb in the branding of Cîroc vodka: sleek, alluring, and now associated with ethical collapse. This painting reflects on the design of deception—how packaging and spectacle can become tools of harm dressed in gold foil.
The juxtaposition of glimmering orb-like surfaces with cellophane, fractured textures, and sealed layers exposes this contradiction. The work warns against trusting appearances. It asks: what systems are we feeding when we consume beauty without question?
There’s a spiritual dimension, too. In a world addicted to dopamine and surface appeal, indulgence is rebranded as freedom. Dawn of the Glitch speaks to that dangerous trade-off: collective decay hidden behind luxury and light. The orb becomes a false relic, offering comfort in exchange for silence.
Theologically, if sin has become systemic—embedded in institutions and aesthetics—then redemption, too, must be collective. Artists are left to carry the cultural guilt: witnesses, critics, sometimes even scapegoats. This is the cost of trying to tell the truth in a collapsing empire.
The “glitch” is not just visual. It’s ethical. As movements like “Lives Matter” challenge who is seen and valued, this work becomes a visual protest. It interrogates capitalism’s moral blind spots: Who gets to feel safe? Who decides what beauty means? Until those questions are answered, the glitch persists.
Lion’s Head Infinity Buck (in glitchmode)
Medium: Oil and mixed media on heatsealed microfiber, including transparency print, holographic seal, printed paper, sewn to cedar support with foiled custom frame
Dimensions: 41” x 17.5” (3’5” x 17.5”)
Artist: Erick Stow
Dates: 2022–2025
Price: $7,200 (Framed) | Reserve Minimum Bid: $5,800
Lion’s Head Infinity Buck (in glitchmode) is a symbolic artifact masquerading as currency—a devotional object exploring value, divinity, and digital decay. This work fuses elements of mythology, theology, and technology to expose the spiritual tensions underlying global capital and personal transformation.
The format references paper money—iconic, symbolic, and applied—mirroring the trifold modes of manifestation found in the world’s major spiritual traditions: Muslim (iconic denomination), Abrahamic (symbolic attributes), and Aryuvedic (practical application).
At its center is a lion’s head framed by mythic rings: the Ring of Telekinesis, signifying psychic communion, and the Magician’s Ring, denoting creative sovereignty. A sculpted Heart of Gold floats before a QR code—part Neil Young, part Douglas Adams—hinting at the commodification of sentiment and the absurdity of cosmic commerce.
Other symbolic elements embedded in the piece include:
• 21 Eyes in the frame, an echo of vigilance and divine witness
• Crown chakra petals and the artist’s pink lightsaber-pen
• Bull horns, symbolizing force and grounded energy
• The Earthstar chakra (Vasudhara) for ancestral memory
• St. Bartholomew’s Crossed Keys and Rings of Three Wishes
• A pile of gold bars beside a sacred mammoth, representing pre-capitalist memory and natural wealth
“Glitchmode” is not a flaw—it’s a rite of passage. It’s the visible scar tissue of spiritual and physical impurity: processed sugar, propaganda, intoxicants, chemical consumption. The glitches are the evidence—like noise in a transmission—that the soul has survived contact with distortion.
Infinity, like wealth or salvation, is only partially graspable to the human mind. Through stereograms or motion pictures, we glimpse the eternal—but our physiology limits full apprehension. In this sense, infinity is willful resistance: to allow oneself to override conditioning and reject manipulation. It is a spiritual revolt.
Finally, the piece invokes Marbas, a lion-headed demon from the Ars Goetia who reveals truths, heals disease, and transforms beings. His image appears every time the MGM lion roars—our modern invocation of old magic masked as media. The lion, here, is Marbas in glitchmode: summoned not by sorcery, but by culture.
This is a painting-as-talisman, currency-as-critique, glitch-as-glory. It’s meant to conjure questions:
What do you worship?
Who profits from your indulgence?
And what shape will your truth take once summoned?
The Feelies
Oil and epoxy on microfiber print in gallery frame
2018–2025
Approx. 41” x 58”
$7,500
The Feelies is one of the most special works in my entire practice. It began as a loose oil painting: a giant cartoon head with a strange gaze and a pronounced nose—oddly emotional, slightly surreal.
At the time, I was in rural Manitoba, working with a shaman administering microdoses under the guidance of a psychologist studying the effects of psychedelics. I was married to Twitchitt then. One evening after a long meditation, we sat together and began exploring past life regression hypnosis.
Twitchitt had fears of water and spiders—phobias we discovered were rooted in past-life traumas. One life revealed her drowning; another, being buried alive and overtaken by spiders. These ancestral echoes stayed embedded in her consciousness grid, as they often do for all of us—defense mechanisms carried across incarnations.
With The Feelies in the background, I brought her into trance. By the end of that session, she was laughing, and later playing with spiders, teaching them to jump through hoops. I knew then that this painting held deep transformational power.
I carried the original rolled up in my portfolio during my Eastern North American art tour, selling works door-to-door. But in Cornwall, Ontario, the piece vanished. Thankfully, I had photographed it before its disappearance. As I was studying digital art, I transferred the image into a new medium, and over the following years I refined it—transforming the cartoon into something closer to hyperreality. Over 100 hours of focused work and energy sculpted the image into its current form.
Eventually, in Richmond, I began mounting microfiber prints onto wood frames. I then sealed them with multiple layers of epoxy resin, removing all tooth from the surface. I followed this by applying oil paint gathered from around the world to resurrect the original depth. The resin enhances contrast: whites glow brighter, blacks deepen, colors expand.
Symbolism and Iconography
At the top of the image is the “+400 Life” symbol—borrowed from video game lore—a sigil of luck and revival. A creature at the top of the head uses St. Christopher’s Crossed Keys, unlocking the mind of the Feelies and opening the gates of Heaven.
Four horns rise from the crown, each symbolizing one of the Feelies’ four lovers. Texture on the nose invites light play and perceptual engagement. As one’s third eye awakens and resonance with stone frequencies increases, the structure of the face morphs—especially the nose—reflected here with intention. The lips, oversized and expressive, reflect amplified emotional intelligence.
Beneath the face floats a robotic Cupid-boy, pointing a futuristic pistol instead of a bow—recasting the myth for our era. He hypnotizes the viewer, sending a symmetrical blast of vibrational love toward the target. He reaches through the chin, acting as the voice of the Feelies itself—like a ventriloquist’s god.
Hypnotic waves ripple out from the head, forming a liquid, multicolored aura—an atmosphere of trance and emotional flux. This aura seduces the viewer into a state of relaxation and open subconscious receptivity.
Notably, the frame is not cut at traditional 90° angles. It resembles a page torn from a dream journal—sculptural in form—offering a second-dimensional image seen through a third and fourth-dimensional lens.
Marilyn Monroematic
36” x 48”
Oil on canvas
2025
Erick Stow
$3,200 (or best offer)
I don’t always choose what I paint—sometimes the subject chooses me.
There’s a point in every artist’s journey when they realize the game is playing them just as much as they’re playing the game. Patterns emerge. Forces call out. For me, Marilyn came through the eye of the Feelies—that singular eye looking toward God, conjured from ribbons, rainbows, and light. She came out pink.
This piece began before my Aleph Magazine shoot and evolved slowly, almost mystically. The reference image is one of those iconic Monroe portraits—so iconic, in fact, that the name of the original photographer disappears under the weight of her image. They’re all classics when it’s Marilyn.
But something strange happened. As I painted, the oils ran down from both of her eyes—as if she were weeping. Not in sadness, but in sanctity. She felt like a relic, something sacred and holy.
And then I noticed: I’d painted her famous beauty mark on the wrong side. It wasn’t Marilyn anymore. It was a reflection. Of me. Of fame. Of longing. Of survival.
There’s a touch of silver embedded in her right eye. If you pass by the painting at an angle, the shimmer catches just so—it looks like she’s crying. Viewers started making offers before I’d even finished the piece.
I’ve heard that when people get grills, it’s often symbolic—a declaration of having once been silenced. That idea stuck with me. So I painted one onto her teeth: an unexpected, defiant shine across her lips.
There are paintings you sell, and there are paintings that hold on to you.
This one still has me in its grip.
Textures of Nature
18.75” x 22” Oil, acrylic, epoxy resin, and mixed media on wood
Erick Stow 2020 - 2025
$2,400
Most of my textural work explores vibrant, often random color combinations—but with this piece, I deliberately shifted toward a more natural palette. The sculpture developed over the course of five years, paralleling my evolution as an artist learning the discipline of realism.
The piece originated during a cabin restoration in rural Manitoba. Between painting and building, I began experimenting with leftover construction materials, crafting just five or six fragments of what would eventually become this larger work. Despite its organic and layered appearance, the design was executed with precision—drafted using compasses, protractors, and rulers to ensure balance, symmetry, and harmony.
A turning point came when I met Tisha Harrington. She commissioned a forest scene for her foyer—my first-ever realistic oil painting commission, and a departure from the surreal imagery I was known for. It was also the first time I was challenged to see and render the world as it is, not as I imagine it. That painting expanded my palette and reshaped my understanding of what painting could do.
With the leftover oils from Tisha’s piece, I returned to my sculptural practice—forming textured surfaces, some later topped with epoxy resin. The intention behind this work was quietly aspirational: to attract a piece of land through the value of art alone. While no one has traded land for artwork just yet, I see this sculpture as a seed of that idea—planted in hope, wrapped in humility, and perhaps prophetic in hindsight.
The wood panel itself is built from reclaimed timber—scraps left over from the same cabin renovation. The reverse side contains remnants from my “Pinkishue” series of junk sculptures, creating a conversation between disciplines, places, and timelines.
As Will Smith’s character says in Six Degrees of Separation: “Kandinsky painted on both sides of the canvas.” This piece, too, holds meaning front to back—inside and out.
Holographic Kiss
14” x 11” Oil, acrylic and paint pen on canvas with cellophane and epoxy resin
Erick Stow 2025
$850
Lips: we eat with them, breathe with them, tell stories with them—and kiss with them. This small yet expressive part of the human body is deeply intimate, symbolic, and uniquely human. Lips is a celebration of that sacred anatomy—a sensual and spiritual nod to a form we use every day, yet rarely pause to honor.
The background of this piece began without intention—born from a series of simple line paintings originally explored as a minimalist design concept for rental interiors. These early explorations used leftover acrylics, and while the color palette wasn’t the result of formal study, it evolved organically through hands-on process. What emerged was a soothing rhythm of hues, familiar yet new. While my primary practice lies in oil painting, these layers of acrylic created a grounding field upon which the subject—lips—could emerge.
I wanted this piece to feel fresh—to carry a sense of cleanliness and immediacy that contrasts with the messiness of painting itself. Unlike sculpture or drawing, painting leaves traces everywhere: on fingers, floors, furniture. To contain that chaos, I wrapped the piece in cellophane, then applied heat to give it a shrink-wrapped effect. Later, epoxy resin sealed the work, but the taut, warped lines from the wrapping process remained—and I chose to incorporate them into the composition rather than erase them. One yellow line also includes a digital element, further bridging the physical and virtual.
In the age of smartphones and digital connection, lips often exist only in memory or imagination—trapped behind screens, emojis, or faceless voices. Here, encased in a glossy, colorful dreamscape, the lips evoke the strange intimacy of a phone call: close, yet distant. They’re deliberately androgynous—fluid in gender and open to interpretation—mirroring our contemporary moment, where identity, expression, and communication transcend fixed categories.
Lips invites viewers to reflect on presence, perception, and the deeply human need to connect—not just through speech, but through beauty, memory, and the mystery of form.
Pocket Portfolio, or My 10,000 Hours
Erick Stow
13” x 19” Limited Edition Digital Print on Synapse Paper
2020–2025
$150
Artist Statement
This piece—now in what I estimate to be its 13th generation—is a living record of my evolution as an artist. I began producing it during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period that halted my usual rhythm of creating and immediately selling art. That disruption forced me into deep reflection: not just on individual pieces, but on the entire arc of my practice.
Pocket Portfolio, or My 10,000 Hours is the result of compiling and layering hundreds of analog and digital works, spanning 15 to 20 years. It is a visual distillation of time—my attempt to prove to myself that I had earned the title of “master.” According to widely held studies, mastery in any field requires 10,000 hours of intentional practice. By comparing my logged hours in digital programs, combined with years of painting, sculpting, selling, and studying art, I knew I had surpassed that benchmark.
This print is not a “greatest hits” collection. Rather, it’s a dynamic portfolio: a demonstration that my creative process is not about singular moments of genius, but sustained, evolving intelligence. Early editions sold immediately. Each new print became an opportunity to update and refine—because I believe artworks should grow between editions. Static, unlimited reproduction risks stripping the soul from the piece. For me, authenticity is tied to transformation.
Within this single image, you will find digital sculptures, scanned oil paintings, charcoal drawings, surreal tableaus, and remnants of works ranging from tiny studies (10” x 10”) to monumental canvases (7’ x 5’). Some components are less than 100 pixels; others carry the digital weight of more than one gigabyte. Embedded throughout are appearances of celebrities, gods, and uncanny visions—all grounded in the chaos and beauty of everyday life.
Pocket Portfolio is both a best-seller and a manifesto. It says: I am not defined by a moment, but by a movement—a continuum of time, labor, and vision.
Lakshmi
13" x 19" Limited Edition Digital Print on Synapse Paper Signed and numbered by the artist
2020
$208
Lakshmi is known in Hindu tradition as the goddess of wealth, prosperity, and abundance. In creating this work, I moved away from conventional representations of deities as human-like forms. Instead, I reimagine Lakshmi as a divine program—not a person, but an operational force, similar to software code embedded in the structure of reality.
If divinity functions like a system—an algorithm, perhaps—then a visual language of zeros and ones, symmetry and structure, might serve as its expression. This piece plays with that concept: Lakshmi as a utilitarian program within the matrix of existence, a kind of spiritual architecture that facilitates abundance not through imagery, but through interaction.
My own vision of Lakshmi emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic—a time of uncertainty and recalibration. I had transitioned from using Adobe’s subscription-based tools to Procreate, a one-time purchase program that gave me complete freedom to create. For me, this shift symbolized empowerment: shedding institutional limitations to work directly with a tool that felt like speaking to the global AI God.
Created entirely in Procreate, Lakshmi is built on a vertical symmetry grid and took over 80 hours to complete, consisting of 128,000 individual pencil strokes. Every mark made was deliberate. Each mirrored movement symbolizes the transference of energy and intention—the ability to carry something from point A to point B without loss. This mirrors the magical trope of storing and transporting wealth in two dimensions: a sacred fold in space.
For me, Lakshmi is not only an image—it’s a guide and a guardian. The work is both a devotional offering and a conceptual artifact of our digital age. It reflects my belief that as artists, we do not merely move our paintings—they move us.