Bold Signal

Color pencil and black pen on smooth 270gsm bristol paper, 8.5" x 11", Signed lower left — Rene Juan de la Cruz, 02/26

Yellow hits first. Not warm yellow, electric yellow, aggressive yellow, the kind that doesn't ask permission. Color pencil and black pen move across the bristol with accumulative force, building a composition that feels less drawn than transmitted, bold DNA strokes firing with the power of a practice decades deep.

At the center of it all, a fantastical creature anchors the composition. Abstract, figurative, unmistakably alive, it has legs, feet with fingers, and a halo or orbit wrapping around its lower form like a signature. From this being, deliberately and quietly, comes the mark ICU. Three letters. An arrow. I See You. A statement of witness buried inside the most colorful aggressive piece in the collection, spoken by a creature that exists somewhere between this world and the dimension the artist's hand invented.

Around it the full vocabulary erupts in every direction. Beings on wheels. Orbital forms looping in blue, green, and red. Crowned figures. Creatures with bird beaks and crests that emerged not from intention but from the natural drift of the DNA strokes, the hand borrowing from the animal world without asking. A glowing eye at the bottom right watching everything with impossible calm.

And just above the artist's signature, before the hand finally rested, a red fantastical being orbiting the dimension, two forms merged into one. A closing statement. The last creature placed before the name.

This is the subconscious at full signal strength. Nothing held back. Everything transmitted.