SOHO: The Return
Each will be minted as a 1/1 on Transient Labs with an accompanying Limited Edition triptych on Objkt
A Triptych by Laurence Fuller
“Did you see a traveler pass by here?
Not too long ago?”
SOHO: The Return is the mythic continuation of Laurence Fuller’s cinematic poetry triptych ~ a return to the spiritual battlefields of the Metropolis, once mythologized in his earlier work SOHO, now re-imagined with the eyes of that same weathered wanderer years on. Part Homeric epic, part autobiographical redemption, it fuses the arc of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca with the artist’s own passage through exile, deception, and ultimate self-reclamation.
This return is no triumphal fanfare. It is storm-slicked cobblestones, rusty hotel mirrors, and sirens behind glass windows. It is a soul remembered by the stones beneath his feet, and forgotten by the very city he once lit aflame with verse.
The traveler ~ cloaked, astride a broken donkey, clutching only a letter. Is not a poet in ruin. His voice is a chorus of fragmented recollections echoing through rain-smeared windows and kaleidoscopic dreams.
“He walked through a hall of mirrors, each with his name.
Each looked exactly the same, like him.
They told him to go outside,
Where they would show on screens a theatre of his life…”
The triptych unfolds as a living fresco ~ three tableauxs of descent and return:
I. THE LETTER
The letter recalls his Odyssey on the search for beauty ~ to its receipent, who walks through gardens in the city.
“It is time to bring me that green feather,
To fletch the arrows and unravel the bow
Which none other can nock…”
II. THE TRIPTYCH
Ressurecting the triptych in the digital age. The Ghent Altarpiece, painted by Jan and Hubert van Eyck in 1432 ~ was a jewel of the Northern Renaissance, a visual hymn to God, to lamb, to blood, to light, to prophecy.
Its panels open like the gates of heaven ~ revealing not just the divine, but the strangeness of the divine.
Eyes stare out from every direction.
Prophets whisper beneath Gothic arches.
Angels sing, but they do not smile.
In the center: the Lamb of God, bleeding into a golden chalice, surrounded by adoring multitudes, beneath the eternal spring of paradise. Napoleon stole parts of it. In World War II, it was hidden in a salt mine by the Germans. But the altarpiece refused to cooperate. When the Allies arrived, the mine was wired with explosives. And yet, the triptych survived. Preserved in salt ~ the eternal symbol of covenant, exile, and transformation.
III. THE RECKONING
The final act. A reckoning. The poet, no longer hidden, reclaims the bow of burning gold. Each arrow is forged in fire, aimed not at flesh but falsehood. An image borrowed from William Blake's poem 'Jerusalem'.
“Bring me my bow of burning gold,
And watch me set the world alight.”
And should they try to take it from him?
“He will be not of this earth.
And his wonder will be as awestruck as the realm they curse.”
A chorus rises:
THEM: “For this where have you been?”
I: “That I have been in the dell,
The wandering embers of that shuddering bell…”
THEM: “Then wake up from this dream you have been living.”
I: “And to where should I wake, when the window’s broken?”
THEM: “Home.”
I: “Then I knew it was true… for I am lightning.”
SOHO: The Return is a bolt of lightning in three strikes ~ a cinematic elegy to exile, a war cry for authenticity, and a final return to the sacred act of making beauty from ruin. The bow is drawn.
Now, the world must brace for the arrow.
Artist’s Statement
My poetry was born of metropolis, perhaps it is a better place for poetry to be born than in the simple cabins and coffee shops, essentially alone within a sprawling landscape of people.
My greatest comfort has always been the page. A consolation which reflect back my thoughts of salvation. An honest mirror that could show not just my most optimistic outcomes, but things as they were and outline the monsters in the shadows too.
Odysseus was out at sea for one decade ~ but for most artists, that journey is much longer than just one decade. The self-reliance one learns is total ~ every piece of driftwood that floats by can become the mast of a great voyage.
A piece of discarded seaweed: the catalyst for the gardens of Babylon. The carcass of a whale: the substance for a legacy.
The dusty attics of history become the new museum of the screen. Access becomes only halted by the human mind, the void is a deeply personal exploration well containing all possibilities, outcomes born of greatness and despair. A frought balance between sacred steps toward eternity or slipping from that staircase towards Dante’s Inferno. And everything in between.
The way of the pioneer: to choose only themselves first and forge the way.
The road less traveled by is wrought with danger ~ Cyclops, wanderers, sirens, and traps.
And that feeling I know is common among artists and poets. Maybe a destiny that’s born of being on the outskirts of society, looking in at its hopes, families and functional dinner parties and excesses of the acceptable. When all that’s true about you, feels unacceptable.
Communities aligned by a shared social order ~ both corporate and institutional, agreement that this way of life is correct and redeemable. And all its players wearing smiles as they sip champagne. But that other way of life, which chooses its own route ~ is on the outside looking in.
Each and every creative act is a return. The artist goes out into the wilderness at times for many years before they emerge again into the city. That period of time can be wrought with danger.
When the lighthouse is broken and there is only silence for that drifting spirit out at sea. The only treasures he has are within and all without is salt and storm.
Melt a piece from SOHO Collection to acquire an edition of Ice Cream
