"X. Masquerade" was begun atโ and developed over the course ofโ the conception, pregnancy, birth, and first months of our daughter's life.
She, Syla, is in all of it. I mean that in the most literal sense of whatever spectrum remains literal to you. Though Masquerade is the focus, the painting you see at the end of this trailerโI made it from her first ultrasound. The first time we heard her heartbeat. And it touches everything you see in the panoramic sprawl before.
Now six months old and growing, every brushstroke trying to capture her least-formed self, the earliest imagery we have of her, I see in herโif only in my own shoddy attempt to represent something far more pure and real than imagery can ever hope to be.
And this crude interpretation of her is woven into the fibers of every system we developed to create Masquerade. All nodes lead to and from her. Every slipping blade of grass, twisting branch, swirled surface of skinโevery Mask within the piece, and in the entire collection, is touched with this ultrasound, the process of starting over, right alongside each and every one of my past attempts. Every sketch, underpainting, character, and brushstroke. The best placed ones and the poorest alikeโeverything I had to give to it along the way. Making this, all of this, the systems under, in, and above the work has felt like grinding a rock against a mainframe. It is an awfully grimy, messy, way to bang a computer into trying to extend your humanity through it.
But the attempt is the point. Always has been.