During Covid era, my marriage began a rapid decline. I found myself unemployed in March of 2020. My mother-in-law temporarily moved into our spare bedroom. I slept on the couch in our family room.

After Covid, no longer sleeping on the couch, I moved my work desk from a larger room to the spare bedroom my mother-in-law had used. That's now where I slept, apart from my wife, on the opposite side of the house. 

I dove into work further than before while she kept care of our children by day and worked on her coffee business. I kept to my office/bedroom. Depression still lying shallow beneath the surface, visible through the mask.

That October I started playing with AI image generators, testing to see what they could do for the art I had in my head. Continuing with skulls, I added florals.

At the time I didn't truly know why I was drawn to the to duality. On reflection, I wanted to be hopeful, to feel surrounded with life. Yet, there I was, still broken, still falling apart. I was forcing myself to try to feel alive. My art was made with something artificial, I was made of something artificial.