Disenthrallment
Trai Orthal
AUDIO DESCRIPTION
Show Audio Transcript
My name is Trai and my piece is titled Disenthrallment. In the midst of the pandemic and quarantine, I started painting again after years, imagining a race of eyeball-headed aliens and other object-head humanoids. Everyone was forced to slow down, spending time consuming media, observing nature, or pursuing other activities in solitude, and this idea fascinated me.
My art then took a surreal turn and I began building a visual language I could eventually turn into my long-term tarot deck passion project. Disenthralment is a piece I began and abandoned over 10 years ago while still in very broad strokes, a figure standing on a palace balcony looking longingly out into the distance. When I started painting again, I resurrected the unfinished piece, I turned the rough sketched figure into one of my beloved lavish green eyeball-headed women.
The palace became overgrown with beautiful but overpowering vegetation and the maiden was now releasing a blue bird from an organically grown cage. It is a piece about creating channels of escape, vicarious or otherwise.
DETAILS
Acrylic on canvas
Size:
16"x 20"
Price:
$800.00
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Trai Orthal
Queer, nonbinary, surreal 2d/3d traditional and digital artist. Creating is akin to breathing for me. My art is a colorful exploration of observation and an exercise in twisting nature and nostalgia into the beautifully unnerving and seemingly unlovable, and then finding those out there that love them regardless.
