Be Cool

A monumental, seated figure—rendered with the brittle texture of newsprint—becomes a living archive of public appetite and private consequence, his calm mudra undercut by the restless clench of his other hand. The saturated orange of his shirt reads like a warning flare against the cool blue ground, while black smoke and circling aircraft compress the space into a claustrophobic theatre of conflict. Behind his head, a jagged crown of red buildings suggests a city both possessed and produced by him, turning urban growth into a halo that implicates power in destruction. The work feels like a political fable: consumption masquerading as serenity, and a body enlarged into the emblem of systems too heavy to move without breaking what surrounds them.