"Cages of Comfort." Print

"Cages of Comfort." 2026

Sometimes, we don’t notice the bars because we choose them. This one is an exploration of self imposed isolation and the way modern comfort, particularly through technology, has become substitute for genuine human connection. Two figures sit curled up within their cages, not as prisoners, but as occupants. Above them, 2 crows hold keys in their mouths. The crow is a messenger between worlds. Intelligent, watchful, a symbol of transformation. They wait patiently. The keys exist, the offer has always existed, but we’ve stopped looking up. The padlock hangs above over the very symbol of freedom, because what truly often imprisons us is not the walls we build, but the meaning we assign to safety. We lock away the idea of escape before we ever attempt it. Running down the center is a reversed Algiz rune. Its reversal is intended to ask a quiet question: “who are we unprotected from when the threat is our own stillness?” A lot of us reside here, in the comfortable half dark, with the key somewhere overhead or inside and a good enough reason not to reach for it.