The artist is surveying the smoldering remains of their latest installation. Ash drifts in lazy spirals, carried by the eddies of an unseen current. This is their process, their calling. They believe that true art emerges from destruction—born in the burnt space where nothing is pristine, and everything is transformed.
The installation is an immense structure: jagged metal beams twisting upward, charred fragments of wood scattered like a forest after a wildfire, and shattered glass reflecting the low light in fractured rainbows. It’s a monument to entropy, a deliberate surrender to chaos.
Onlookers circle the edges of the exhibit, murmuring. Some lean closer, trying to decipher the meaning in the blackened debris. Others recoil, uneasy with the rawness of it. The artist doesn’t care for interpretation. They’re not here to explain, only to create.
The burnt space is sacred to them. It started years ago when they accidentally set fire to an early sculpture in their cramped studio. Watching the flames devour their carefully constructed piece, they felt a jolt of clarity. The destruction wasn’t the end of the work—it was the work. Since then, every creation begins with fire, heat, or dissolution.
Today’s piece is no different. Earlier that morning, it was silent but for the crackle of flames as they ignited the towering sculpture. A controlled burn, carefully calibrated, but nonetheless alive. They stood close, close enough to feel the heat prickling their skin, watching as the materials bent and blistered, transformed by the fire’s touch.
“It’s violent,” someone says now, their voice low but audible.
Later, after the embers cool, they walk alone through the wreckage. Their fingers brush over a piece of warped metal, still warm to the touch. This is where they belong, in the in-between, where destruction births creation.
Tomorrow, they’ll build again. And burn again.