"Palimpsest Hourglass 1" and "Palimpsest Hourglass 2" unfold as two mirrored presences, inviting the viewer into a quiet reflection on the passage of time.
Each work carries within its structure three overlapping states — Death, Rebirth, and Completion — unfolding in one direction in the first piece, and in reverse in the other, like a continuous, meditative cycle.
Through a slow and perpetual process of deconstruction, each painting gradually reveals what fades within its counterpart, suggesting a subtle exchange between loss and emergence. While visually autonomous, the two works remain deeply interconnected, forming a shared conceptual space that invites introspection.
Rooted in alchemical symbolism, the works echo the transformative stages of Nigredo, Albedo, and Rubedo — processes through which matter evolves toward becoming pure gold. The delicate cracks in the pictorial surface become traces of this transformation, reflecting not decay, but a living process. In this way, the works resonate with the viewer’s own experience of time, change, and inner becoming, where what appears to fragment is, in fact, part of a deeper unfolding.
Seen through a Jungian lens, this unfolding can be understood as a process of integrating the shadow — those obscured or unacknowledged aspects of the self — into a more complete and conscious whole. The works thus gesture toward individuation, where fragmentation is not an end, but a necessary passage toward inner coherence and transformation.
