Description
This was one of my first real explorations into mechanical science fiction — a painting I made during a time when I was excited by the possibilities of where my art could go.
The Drone Collector isn’t just about a guy salvaging machines. It’s about someone walking headfirst into the unknown, lit by the warmth of a flickering lantern but weighed down by the past on his back.
At the time, I was newly obsessed with painting mechanical forms: gears, tubes, rust, and clock parts. I didn’t fully understand why, but now I think I was drawn to the feeling of building something out of broken things.
When I look at the painting now, this character feels like a stand-in for who I was then: carrying everything I’d been through, but still pushing forward into the fog with a spark of hope. He’s not lost. He’s collecting. That’s what art has always been for me — not escape, but recovery.
