My work seeks to reveal unseen forces that slither beneath the surface of perception, peeling away the algorithmic shell of conditioned familiarity to expose undercurrents of the Macrocosmi Fabrica—the vast and intricate latticework of existence.

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​For me, time, myth, and personal history do not progress in a straight line. They collide, distort, fold over themselves—converging in the advances and retreats of our culture, and this hallucinatory present we inhabit.

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​My studio is both a cabinet of curiosities and an alchemical laboratory. Within it I have gathered celestial maps, apotropaic talismans, vinyl disks, memento mori, and the esoterica of vanished cultures—not as static artifacts, but as catalytic ingredients of my process. Drafted into the service of my work their forms press against each other, dissolve into one another, seeking new configurations, perhaps ones they had always longed for...

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These personal treasures—scavenged from flea markets, pried from the hands of antiquarians, or captured during my photographic wanderings through cultural capitals—do not sit idly. Their latent energies itch to become something else, something elusive—Sigil's that elude definition, yet insist on being seen.

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Each layered tableaux is created in an ongoing dance of transfiguration, often evolving over years. Elements are staged, juxtaposed—layered, painted, collaged, effaced, photographed, printed, then digitally layered again—until (hopefully) the work escapes origins, defying gravity, vibrating with new frequencies in which the sacred absolves the profane, the antique copulates with the modern, the arcane whispers against the commonplace.

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This definitely isn't a sober, orderly vision - the work is a brew of cosmic and artistic intoxication. Each piece is a palimpsest, a dream-machine, a reflection of other worlds discovered in the crucible of the eternal present.

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James Mansour