Beyond the Frame

When I started building “Salvator Dali”, I didn’t know I was chasing an award. I was chasing a feeling. Something between reverence and rebellion—a sensation that the image in my head was too wild to paint, too structured to leave unmade.

So I turned to the materials that ground me: hundreds of tiny wooden cubes, each hand-dyed, imperfect, and stubborn. I spent weeks bending geometry into emotion—constructing the surreal from the square. Dali’s gaze emerged first. Then the flame-like crown. Then the ghost of a smirk that seemed to know more than I did.

This wasn’t a tribute to the man. It was a confrontation with his myth. I didn’t want to flatter Dali—I wanted to challenge him in his own language.

When the Circle Foundation for the Arts awarded me Creative Excellence in their 10th International Artist of the Month Contest, it was a moment of pause. Recognition, yes. But more than that: a signal that the risk worked. That absurdity has value. That texture can whisper meaning. That an unconventional approach—one cube at a time—can still cut through the noise.

Art doesn’t always need to shout. Sometimes, it just needs to stare back at you—quietly, defiantly, from 6,400 fragments of color.