Legacy of Babel, 2022

49" x 32" acrylic on board; Basic Frame

Legacy of Babel transforms the ancient story of the Tower of Babel into a dream-architecture of conflict and collapse. Two colossal stone heads—part monument, part fortress—face each other across a turbulent sky, their features doubling as both human likeness and castle walls. Suspended bridges span between them, where armies of warriors clash in endless battle, evoking the myth of Babel as not only the fragmentation of language, but the fracturing of human will and identity.

The smaller satellite heads circling the scene suggest fragments of thought, scattered voices, or drifting memories, orbiting the central struggle. Emerging from a process of automatic drawing, the composition speaks in the language of dreams—where faces become landscapes, and structures of civilization take on living form. The storm-laden sky deepens the sense of unease, as though the world is caught between creation and dissolution.

Through this hybrid of mythology and personal dream imagery, Legacy of Babel becomes less a retelling of an ancient tale than a meditation on the cycles of human ambition, conflict, and the fragile architectures—both physical and psychic—that hold us together.

Reverse: Study for Beauty and the Beast.

F. Forrestall