Works by
Michael Talbot
I Am Not Your Judas is the latest collection of works created by Michael Talbot, and done as part of the innaugural cohort showcase, VOICE5, for Artists For Humanity's Alumni Fellowship program. This new body of work explores the intersections between misconceptions, storytelling, and human nature.
Snakes — despite being misrepresented and mislabeled as vindictive, conniving, cunning, and sly — have existed, persisted, and persevered in spite of these labels.
In a previous body of work, Warrirors In The Garden, I explored what it might look like if an individual was to accept their role as this scapegoat, the fall-guy... the Judas.
I Am Not Your Judas now expands upon this to show the other side — to show what happens when one fights back against the negative stereotypes... and how simply the act of defiance can make you the very monster they feared you to be.
For sales and inquiries, please contact Michael Talbot directly at mikeytalbot@gmail.com or call/text (508) 948-5653.
- Price: $2,000 each -
Let's start from the beginning... from the very moment you became aware of my existence.
I was a belief, a beacon, and a blunder that propelled the rest of our history into the future we now live today. You called me the Western cardinal point, to indicate the moment when everything right instead went left...
A cardinal sin so enticing I could convince you to throw away everything you've worked so hard for, simply for the promise of knowing when to turn and run.
A cautionary tale so dangerous, even just one look would spell the end of you.
As you stand there, now frozen and broken, you can't help but lust for the fruit you once plucked from my branches as you soared beyond the boundaries of land and sky just to get to it.
My dear Transgressor, let's start from the beginning once more.
- Price: $25,000 -
Who do you see when you look at me?
My colors on full display as a warning to all who dare to get too close... I've been known to bite when provoked.
Who do you see when you look at me?
My colors on full display as a cheap attempt at deception... I've been known to turn belly-up for those who dare to get too close.
This image you have of me, held to such Saintly standards... I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the thrill of watching you decipher who I am today.
- Price: $1,500 each -
Look me in my eyes and tell me you know who I am... That from that first glance you had me completely figured out.
Did I seem harmless to you? My large dilated pupils expressing what you perceive to be vulnerability. Little did you know this calm demeanor comes from confidence in my abilities to protect myself, and resist you as needed.
Or rather, was it danger you saw? You joke about how evil I look as I stare back at you, seemingly unfazed and unblinking. Like a cat, you call me the Keeper of the Underworld and all it’s horrors, and you assume they all live within me. Would you even believe me if I told you the truth was in fact the complete opposite? Or would you brush it off as yet another of my “apparent lies”?
Either way, I carry on satisfied knowing that this facade worked as intended.
However, it never occurred to you that the reality could be more nuanced than that — or rather, you never stopped to look long enough to see me for who I am... Neither one nor the other, but something entirely new and different.
So I’ll wait. Take another look,
and let your eyes adjust.
- Price: $7,000 -
“We often grasp harder at the things that are closest to us...
Coming from all angles, contorting ourselves while coiled tightly and holding fast, not realizing how we’re suffocating the very things we pledged to protect. Before you know it, you find yourself all tangled (k).not knowing how to undo your current predicament, and finding yourself even further away from where you initially started.
When you realize that the tighter you hold on to something, the quicker it slips away... you then hold tighter still.”
- Price: $7,000 -
The first strike came through someone I thought was my safe space...
As venom seeped out of the now necrotic open wound, I found myself defending all the red flags my family and friends tried to capture and hold as their own.
The second strike came not as a surprise, but through familiarity...
I sat there, covered in the same venom I’ve bathed myself in countless times before, each wound easier to bear than the last.
I learned to recognize the recoil...
I learned to anticipate the fangs...
Until one day I moved out of the way.
The third strike came from me.
- Price: $15,000 -
One more time, with feeling...
At every breaking point, at every instance of realization that this shell of a person can no longer hold the potential of what I owe myself to be, I begin the process once more.
Sedated by the apathy gifted to me time and time again, I grit my teeth and say it's for the better, that I'll only need to do this one more time.
As I now lay bare on this bed of flowers, hoping that this rebirth was the right choice, I realize that with each instance of redefinition, comes a new set of redefined boundaries.
Sigh... lets do this one more time, with feeling.
- Price: $7,000 -
In our quest of self discovery and wholeness, we quickly realized we bit off more than we could chew.
We dug deep, unlocking depths we never knew existed... only to reveal the holes we carved out ourselves. We go deeper still, and as the void gets larger and things become less familiar we question how something so close to home can look so foreign with only the tiniest shift in perspective...
Origins became endings.
Identity became anonymity and confusion.
Perception became untrustworthy.
Safety became the very dangers we tried to avoid.
Attachment became lessons in loss and letting go.
And the Boundaries remained the same.
In the end, we never seem to realize how much we ourselves were feeding into this cycle of self destruction we mistook for discovery.