Title: Nest Egg

Series:Rōstrum: Echoes of Avian Life

Status: Destroyed by the Artist (Decommissioned)

Medium: Coffee, Acrylic, and Oil on Canvas

Size: 30" x 40" / 76.2cm x 101.6cm

"We are taught that if we do everything 'right'—if we build, if we save, if we layer our security like a shell, we are safe. But a Nest Egg is a fragile thing. In the American landscape, the distance between a stable home and the street is often just a single medical emergency, a car accident, or an unforeseen crisis away.

I decommissioned and destroyed this physical work because the 'safety net' it represents is often a beautiful lie. By removing the object from the market, I am forcing the viewer to sit with the reality of its absence. You cannot buy this security; it has been dismantled, just as a family’s stability is dismantled within months of a tragedy. The work now exists only as a historical record of that vulnerability."

-Daniel Montoute