| An unnumbered anchor in the Genomic Works sequence,
Marie Curie stands apart—physically, conceptually, and historically. At 48" x 96", it was designed to dominate a gallery wall, but its trajectory shifted: acquired early, withheld from public exhibition, and shown only in the intimate space of
the artist's home. It became a phantom keystone—present in the system, absent from the launch.
The canvas itself is dense and declarative. Three chromatic bands—lavender,
gray, and green—connect a divided vertical phrase: JESUS WALKED THE WATER, lifted from graffiti found on a post. A hand-drawn cross and possible ankh follow the phrase, threading spiritual ambiguity into the field. To the right of
the lavender “JESUS WAL” band, an unique band composed of eleven stacked boxes replaces the blended genomes of
other works. Each box is distinct: flowers, bandage diagrams, wallpaper, teeth, a burning house, fencers, an eye chart, a key, and a typed poem—concrete fragments arranged like a visual chromosome.
A large blue field anchors the composition with a Picasso image—stylized, historical, and emotionally charged. Nearby, a portrait of Catherine de Medici by Rubens appears in pink and burgundy, adding another layer of inherited presence. The canvas doesn’t blend—it collides. It’s a system of signals, not gradients.
Marie Curie is not a culmination. It’s a rupture. A work that redefines the genome by making it literal, stacked, and archival. It remains part of Phase One, but also marks the threshold of something else—where the system begins to remember differently.
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