False Relics –
Domestic Rituals of Control

False Relics is a still life about the illusion of control — about trying to maintain order and security even though we may already have reached a point where much of it can no longer truly be controlled.

At the centre is a covered fan: an object made to move air, cool a room, and make heat bearable. Wrapped in plastic, it becomes passive — preserved and suffocated at the same time.



The painting unfolds like fragments of an ambiguous domestic ritual. The scene feels familiar, but its logic is unstable: comfort becomes containment, protection becomes distance, and the promise of control begins to fail.

What remains is not an explanation, but a quiet sense of control slipping away — a world still arranging itself while its systems begin to fail.


False Relics / Falsche Reliquien
Oil on canvas
80 × 60 cm
2026

EVERYTHING
UNDER
CONTROL

FOR NOW,
IT HOLDS

THE ROOM
STILL
BEHAVES AS
EXPECTED

PROTECTION
CLOSES IN

COMFORT
HAS TO BE
MADE

THE SYSTEMS
STILL
WORK...
ALMOST

THE HEAT
OUTLASTS
US

NOTHING
HAS
HAPPENED
YET

THE ORDER
BEGINS TO
TILT