A city drowns beneath billowing dunes, choking in the smoke of a vast wreck. The star-cruiser is shattered, her engines humming fitfully as they await someone who knows how to shut them off. The spirit drives are depleted, and some of the fuel has escaped to parts unknown.

The city is no place for her daughter to grow up. Perhaps the train will come today.

> Transit the wreckage

> Wait for the train

🐚
This was the second painting I did in the series, and it has a complexity to it that in some ways I've never approached since. I have tried a couple times, and you will eventually see some of those paintings.

I do not know if I could paint this today, because I would get much more hung up on the specifics of lighting. Much more of my painting back then was trial and error, where I would paint something without a clear plan for making it look like I wanted, or how to make it integrate with the rest of the composition. I'd try, and if it didnt work out I'd delete that layer and try something else.

The shadow people are a staple of the Sequence, particularly earlier installments. I remember I added the fleeing mother and child later, maybe a few months after "finishing" the painting.

The Hylozoist is a long-form digital project I began in February 2020. Each painting tells a story, and each painting tells another story when viewed in context. Also, each painting can be followed to the next painting in the series if you follow the most interesting thing in the scene.

To see more paintings from the project, click here.

, Art , The Hylozoist