@anemale.eth
New artwork on Zora ✨
The Forest in the Lake 🌳
At the heart of a tranquil lake drifts an island of dense foliage, where massive trees form impenetrable alcoves, barely letting through the glimmers of what unfolds within. The inhabitants of this aquatic forest are pale beings, marked with blue stains, with fluid morphologies, long limbs, stretched necks, blue-green hair in crests or flowing strands. They hover between grace and strangeness, oscillating between play, withdrawal, and simmering violence. In this village, every gesture has a witness, but almost never a response: an archer strikes unseen, an ogre devours beneath the branches, children watch in silence, and an acrobat hesitates to intervene. Water absorbs, foliage conceals, earth bears. Here, dramas play out in whispers, every act matters, but none redeems.
The scenes :
The Child Supporting the Shorn One
In the browned grass, a figure has collapsed. Their head, bare and smooth, seems to have lost its hair. as if stripped of a symbolic organ. They clutch their own detached locks, like one would hold a memory too heavy, or a lost identity. At their side, a smaller figure, likely a child, places a hand on their back. This simple gesture could be comfort, aid in rising, or a quiet way of saying : I see you, even like this. Yet ambiguity lingers: is this really a child, or a younger projection of what they once were ? Is the hand there to console, or to remind them of what is gone? In this frozen act lies the tension of an inverted transmission: an emptied adult, a steady child. Perhaps here, fragility has changed sides. Perhaps one is never too small to carry those who fall.
The Witness at the Edge of the Grass
Clinging to the slope, a blue-haired figure half-emerges from the vegetal carpet. The body seems to crawl or rise, uncertain whether it moves forward or seeks to sink back into matter. The character is alone, isolated, but not inactive: they are watching.
In the silence of the scene, this figure becomes a witness. Not a savior, not an actor, an onlooker. Perhaps even a reflection. Positioned at the threshold, between flat ground and grassy incline, they seem neither entirely within the village nor entirely outside it.
Their expression is unreadable, but their role is clear : to observe, to record, to remember. A hidden visitor ? A wanderer ? A fragment of someone else’s dream ? Or the “you” the spectator hesitates to recognize ?
In any case, they see. And they let themselves be seen.
The Suspended Bait
Perched among the branches, a figure with hair flaring upward like a flame seems both lookout and target. In their hand, they hold a long lock of hair, bluish like their own, a lure ? an offering ? Below, carnivorous plants, twisted and trembling, stretch their hungry forms toward the dangling hair.
But who is luring whom? Is the figure ensnaring the plants with some ancestral hunting art, or are these cunning plants drawing their prey ? Ambiguity reigns. The tree is neither refuge nor watchtower: it is a fragile post, a vertical stage. The figure does not flee, but neither do they seem at peace. Perhaps they seek simply to understand the other’s desire , vegetal or interior. It could be a rite of passage. Or a provocation. Or merely a long-prepared accident.
The Child-Eating Ogre
Hidden in the dense shadow of the foliage, a figure, almost camouflaged by bark, is caught mid-act. An arm can be seen holding a slender silhouette with drooping hair, struggling or surrendering, a defenseless child ? The scene suggests an ancient myth, the forest ogre, archaic predator, devourer of innocence. Yet the interpretation is unfixed. Perhaps the ogre exists only in projected fears: is the gesture truly violent ? Could it be a rescue, a lifting, a transmission between two dissimilar beings?
This moment, suspended between earth and branches, might be no more than the dream of the so-called “victim,” or the memory of a first encounter.
The Children Witnesses
Half-hidden in the shadow of a tree, children watch. Naked, frail, silent, they are frozen in a posture that is neither flight nor play. What exactly do they see ? Are they witnesses to what unfolds further, the ogre, the chase, the sacrifices ? Or are these children themselves the source of the forest’s unrest ?
Their gaze is invisible, yet their presence changes the air : they inscribe the drama into a living memory, a story passed on.
Perhaps in this world, the witnesses are the true narrators. And if so, what will they remember ? What they saw, or what they imagined ?
The Floating Body
A body floats, inert, pierced by a yellow arrow driven deep into its back. It barely seems to touch the water’s surface, as if life were torn away so swiftly even gravity hesitated to claim it.
The face is unseen, turned toward the opaque depths. Blue hair drifts like soft algae, while a thin thread of color escapes the wound.
Who was this? A brother ? A lover ? A traitor ? Did they flee, or sacrifice themselves? And above all : why this arrow ? It is a death without answer. The arrow’s origin may yet hold another truth.
The Invisible Archer
Camouflaged in thick foliage, at the threshold of a shadowy passage between trees, the archer waits. Their skin melts into shadow. Only their bluish hair and the golden gleam of their bow betray them and the arrows still poised, silent threats. They did not flee. They remained. Perhaps still waiting. The shot bore no hesitation: a single arrow, precise, into the back of an exposed being. Was it vengeance ? An order ? Or a desperate act ?
Above, another figure moves across the canopy. Accomplice, or fugitive ?
The Melancholic Dabbler and the Acrobat
At the water’s edge, a frail silhouette bends toward the pond. They do not play, they do not splash. They dabble, slow movements, as though the water could soothe something or awaken a buried memory. Their hair falls, their gaze is lowered. All of them seems pulled downward, into the depths, the unknown. An ultimate response to the melancholy of the real, the known, the daily, the routine. Just above, another figure, suspended mid-leap, watches the scene.
The acrobat bursts from the foliage like an intrusive thought, a sharp feeling in the torpor of grief. Are they linked ? Does the dabbler know of their presence ? Or are they but a silent witness, fascinated by solitude, or perhaps worried ?
They seem on the verge of tipping, toward her ? or into the oblivion of their own story ? The balance is fragile. Between two gestures, between two waters, one contemplates what the other seeks to dissolve. A single move could divert the course of her fall. The acrobat knows this. But will they act ?
Or will they let the dabbler slip alone into oblivion , beneath their mute gaze ?
The Intellectual Hidden in His Luminous Den
Nestled in the leafy thickness of a tree, a figure observes the world from their vegetal shelter. A warm halo lights their den, revealing shadows of thoughts or projects. Scholar or dreamer ? Solitary by choice, or exiled by others? Perhaps they are writing the story of those who live below, the children on the shore, playing unaware that they have already become fragments of memory.
The Runner with the Seashell
He runs, barefoot, across the tormented earth, holding a seashell to his ear. Is it a message he flees, or a voice he chases ? His breath digs into the grass, his steps leave a trace behind, rhythm like a child’s race toward a forgotten promise. No one knows if he is bearer of truth, or mere messenger of movement
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