This large hand-carved vessel, crafted from cracked silver birch, is bound with oak dowels and pewter, embodying a narrative rooted in myth and personal transformation. Drawing from the Olmec myth of the two hero twins, who descend into Xibalba, the underworld, it becomes a metaphor for an internal descent into the shadowed recesses of the psyche.

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The fissures in the wood reflect a fracturing of the self, a disintegration brought about by the pressures of existence and experience. Just as the twins navigate the labyrinthine trials of the underworld, so too does the artist grapple with his own struggles, facing the abyss only to rise through them, transformed.

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The twin sibling, Xbalanque, symbolises my shadow self, an amalgamation of anger, strength, and resilience, forces that, while seemingly opposing, coexist in a dialectic of creation and destruction. This vessel and its sibling, serves as an intellectual exploration of the dualities that form the essence of self; each work a reference to the binary of my identity, to my brother and our struggles with adversity, both internal and familial, and the fractured parts of myself that strive for integration.