Decay is not the end — it’s the distillation. After the Rot captures that strange beauty that follows collapse, the quiet, irreversible process of refinement that happens when everything soft and showy falls away. What remains is essence — raw, unpolished, but undeniably true.
The work is made with natural pigments including dried chili and coriander — materials that transform through loss. When fresh, they are ordinary, almost invisible in their abundance. But once dried, they grow sharper, rarer, and more expensive — their strength revealed only after their freshness dies. That change, from lush to essential, mirrors how people evolve: through exhaustion, endings, and the slow burn of experience.
Here, the surface is layered like memory — cracked, stained, and reassembled. Red traces bite through muted tones like nerves that refused to heal cleanly. Gold and warmth appear where erosion should have left nothing, suggesting that worth is sometimes a residue, not an achievement.
After the Rot is both confession and observation. It doesn’t glorify suffering — it simply acknowledges that transformation is rarely clean. You have to rot a little to know what’s left of you.
