The Tiger-Lion Sphinx: A Sovereignty of Gold, Hair and Bronze
This work nearly didn’t exist.
On 3rd February, I stood before a substrate asserting more energy than form: discordant, insistent, requiring a clearer structure.
Certain elements were already carrying weightiness: the textural-energy, the intricate gravity of mass, and the rectangle waiting to be realigned. The task was not to “save” the work, rather one of shaping its authority.
The Substrate as Evidence
The surface behaves as a living archive. Human hair, integrated with gesso and pressed beneath deep green acrylic impasto, forms a raised terrain that directs the composition from within. The wild creature’s face does not sit on the canvas; it architecturally supports the material, shaped by the biological fibres beneath. The human element becomes structural rather than symbolic: absorbed, and returned to a form that exceeds the human altogether.
Not a crisis of confidence — more of acknowledgment.
Displacing the Human
The classical Sphinx, a human head on a lion’s body, centres human primacy. This work reorders that hierarchy. The human is removed, replaced by the dual sovereignty of Tiger and Lion.
The image gestures toward myth, then holds in modern ecological realism. Childhood iconography sits in its lineage, yet the present era brings a focused realisation: habitats contract, corridors fracture, populations disperse. These animals are no longer allegorical symbols. They stand as living measures enduring pressure, navigating worlds that continue to narrow through fragmentation, depleted resource and prey, with conflict at the margins.
By displacing the human face, the Sphinx returns to the wild: a hybrid of hybrids, a living alien, carrying the contemporary weight of existential survival.
Realigning the Rectangle
The final stages were an act of enforcement in embellishment. “Realigning the rectangle” is compositional discipline: clarifying the outer gated boundaries, fixing the geometry and asserting the relationship between frame and symbolism.
A metallic hierarchy stabilises the form:
- Gold acrylic grounds the base, establishes ancient authority.
- Bronze carries the highlights, holding age, endurance and uncompromising presence.
- The green impasto over the hair substrate centres as living ‘Earth’ – functioning as the connective biology rather than decoration.
Iconographic DNA
The dashes and dots operate as visual DNA. They form a coded field: a numerical pattern over-embedded into the surface. They are designed for symbolic resonance, instructions that remain active even when uninterpreted.
Compositional Gate
The final resolution is one of material thought.
Tiger Lion stripes remain intact in their raw state, while the rectangle functions as a rectified frame: a boundary that highlights the sovereign logic of the creature within. Nothing is softened or diluted. The portrait is permitted its full weight and the form arrives at its intended position.
What results is a compositional gate: a rectified frame displaying a specific creature-logic within. The rectangle is resolved. The hierarchy is established. What remains is a presence: an iconic hybrid of hybrids that reads as portrait, wildlife and civilisation, in its effect upon the environment.
The artist views the piece in a positive light.
Regal. Dignified.
The Unfathomable Artist 