Sorcery

Such simplicity? But see! The geometry is warped, betraying even numbers. Peer into the talismanic Eye (of Dischord, of Faithlessness) and feel the obscene tug of “magic.”

Necromancy—the use of the dead for divination and influence—is symbolized by the four stark spurs that lead to the corners of time and place, ravening with imagined power. Surrounding them is a web of perverted faith, sagging under the weight of its heresy. Attend in particular to the negative forms (candle flames? hatchet blades?) and the malice they imply.

The Sorceror’s gaze looks inward, seeing nothing.

Mammon

Has the seduction of greed ever been more plainly put? Here, all is guile, all is sheen, the captivating image in the mirror.

The pervasive theme is overabundance, an offensive visual gluttony. Note the arcs, bedotted so as to resemble kingly ermine or heraldic gold; the solid circles—coins—at ordinal and cardinal points of the perimeter, the gaudy humps round as bulging pockets. And at its heart: an asymmetry that could only represent corruption, of the Soul, of Nature, of Possibility. The diagonal axis at the center reveals a structure incapable of stability, a spirit incapable of grace.

The coin is Man’s heaviest millstone.

Colony

The three basic principles of life: symbiosis, parasitism, and hierarchy. Note the dominance of these patterns throughout the spectrum of Organism. Volvox, mycelium, hive—all require an adherence to a common structure.

The figure’s trilateral symmetry is especially significant as a statement on humanity’s contemporary reality. Three (3)—the sacred numeral—permeates the figure, and its multiplicands provide an almost musical argument in favor of mutualism: Man as Symbiont. I, you, we.

To be is to exist, to be with is to live.

Canon

Our footprints provide the best guide. And only by recitation and convocation are we permitted to enter into the next Realm.

The watchword of this figure is system. The connotation is architectural in its accessibility: The universe is inherently habitable. Is this Nest? Palace? The mandalic quality reveals the salience of place within any system of rite. Everything here—the structure, the filigree—gives further evidence that history is servant to future as much as scribe to past.

Memory is the foundation for future action.

Abyss

Dissolution, a depletion of Spirit. The mockery of iconography is informed by the renunciation of sacrament. The land of the crippled opens its necrotic arms and confers unending mutilation.

This figure represents nothing less than hatred, foul condemnation, and abject misery. No pattern, no structure, no symmetry. No basis. No principle. No foundation. Nothing to offer redemption. The lack of order is so extreme as to be disorder.

The Beast is Chaos.

Telesis

Man's aspirational impulse! The indications—signs—all looking outward, all pointing beyond, toward transcendence. In this sense, the figure is a paean to civilization as the machine of Hope.

From the center—a hive of digital binarity—to the forms that push against the perimeter (as though forcing expectation to greater dimension), we are left to contemplate a utopian future for humanity. However, the alternating solid and skeletal shapes warn against complacency by insisting that in a binary reality—On/OFF—plenty stands alongside plague.

The polity is the enemy of entropy.

Primordium

A blind sifting, an unmindful search for nutriment, stimulus-triggers guide the Primitive. Do we dare recognize ourselves in this brainless grasping, in this reflexive grope? Take note: even the body primeval allows the soul to inhabit its withered spaces.

This figure reminds us that Mouth and Orifice—the Stomata, the Spiracle—are fundaments, the sine qua non of Being. The rigid articulation of forms, the acanthine overtones, connote an almost unicellular innocence. Unlike previous specimens, the only symmetry on offer here is bilateral, fitting for this portrait of the all-Alpha.

All beginnings are small.