Empire of the Primrose poem The city fell in a single night. Holding it would take longer. So the painters were summoned, and the saints on the walls were given his family's eyes. A bloodline was found for him, older than the walls, older than the kings who raised them. Now even the earth must forget it ever belonged to anyone else. The Empire of the Primrose - Station 1 Do you have recurring dreams? Travel Sketches by metamodernist artist JJFBbennett The cycle always resets at dusk, like waking inside the cold architecture of an unyielding, repetitive dream. I walk the wet, cobbled veins of an ancient European city, passing beneath stone arches hung with heavy, lifeless flags, heraldry drained of colour, damp cloth clinging to wooden poles like dead skin. There is no breath of wind, only the low, humming pressure of an era turning in its sleep. I reach into an iron sconce and tear loose a torch of roaring, ragged fire. The flame casts jittering amber shad...
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There is a Disparity in My Light: Navigating the Split Creative Consciousness
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There is a Disparity in My Light: Navigating the Split Creative Consciousness
Introduction - Does Metamodernism Oscillate?
Clarity, I've learned, doesn't guarantee a smooth landing. While the core recalibration manages our internal mechanics, we eventually have to look back out the window and confront the final destination.
For many creators navigating major life transitions or complex technical boundaries, this shift introduces an unsettling inner divide. The anatomy of disparity in creative practice is the psychological friction of a split being—standing physically present in a new space while your internal pace is still trying to catch up with the velocity of your transition. When we widen our creative intent, we often slice our universe in half: balancing cold, geometric clarity on one side against the messy, vibrant residue of personal regret on the other. Rather than forcing these halves to blend, we must learn to treat this exact contrast as our personalised map.
Geometric Clarity vs. The Residue of Regret
Looking for a new perspective and a striking contrast to normalised assumptions, we must sort through an abstraction. Eventually, this abstraction gives way to a jagged, real-world landscape where the light of intention widens, and the splitting of our inner universe is somehow centred.
On one side of the divide sits a blinding, geometric clarity. These are the sharp, glowing decisions waiting on the horizon. This mindset slices directly into deeply set teal patterns of clinical acceptance, carrying the architectural precision of a fully realised destination that is cold, sterile, and uncompromising. It demands objectivism—that things be seen exactly as they are, stripped of myth, reduced to clean lines, hard schedules, and strict definitions.
Yet, on the other side of the divide, the residue of regret refuses to be neatly filed away. It manifests as vibrant, bleeding angst, crashing heavily like a restless king tide that refuses to stop. This is the organic whole of the self; it carries the dirty laundry of repressed anger and historical loss across the world. While our logic tries to impose strict order, our chaotic, raw emotions want to break right through the frame.
I am manifesting as vibrant
Can something feel completely real? By JJFBbennett
The Programmed Anatomy of Disparity: An Audio-Visual Threshold
Like everyone on a transformative path, contemporary creators embody this programmed anatomy of disparity. Arrival at a new location, a new technical pipeline, or a new creative phase does not instantly erase the immense physical and mental weight of the journey. You don’t simply step off a long flight or emerge from a cosmic transit entirely free of baggage.
Our personalised gilded frame
We frame the shock in beauty because human consciousness cannot survive staring directly at an unfiltered explosion. The gilded frame is a necessary defence mechanism. It allows the figure to stay grounded inside his staged epiphany, and it allows us, the viewers, to appreciate the vibrant splendour of a breakdown from a safe, comfortable distance.
To fully process this uncomfortable middle ground without losing yourself, you must accept the friction. The vibrant, bleeding petals of our internal landscapes erupt directly through sterile logic, reminding us that our most ancient, archaic impulses—our capacity for loss, memory, and transformation—cannot be engineered or optimised out of existence.
My Guilded Goul is seeking individualisation
This metamodernist psychological art represents a deep internal struggle.
"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." Carl Jung
By allowing my "Ghoul" to break through, my character is participating in the ultimate Jungian task: individuation. The gold frame remains, but it no longer sanitises the crisis. The architecture of the self has been split wide open, proving that you cannot arrive at a new destination whole until you have given your ancient, messy shadow the confidence to breathe.
Standing Firm Within the Central Axis
Navigating the gap between clean logic and chaotic emotion means treating the contrast not as a creative mistake, but as a map for future pursuits. We cannot force the two halves to blend perfectly into artificial happiness.
Instead, we must stand firm within the bright, central axis of our work. By allowing a higher, intentional light to give meaning to our transitions, we regain our focus. We push our lingering doubts and repressed frustrations outward, letting them exhaust themselves entirely somewhere on the distant horizon. The older, messy root of who we are continually breaks through self-imposed barriers, giving us the resilience to step forward into our next creative pursuit.
How to Stand Firm Within a Central Axis - video by JJFBbennett
Does metamodernism oscillate?
Yes, oscillation is the central, defining characteristic of metamodernism. Rather than adopting a fixed position, metamodernism is often described as a dynamic "structure of feeling" that oscillates between opposite poles. I am trying to find a path forward by acknowledging both sides of the argument simultaneously.
Leaving a Monumento before my flight
The transformation began just after I committed myself to the portal's gate. It was not a violent expansion, but a slow, liquid release, an unspooling of my consciousness and the structure of my reality. The text and data nodes of my past thoughts evaporated into the deep, oceanic blue background, and that heavy, golden density I had carried within me liquefied, flowing outward to form the framework of my new existence: my wings.
This artwork is protected by U.S. and International copyright laws. Distribution and/or modification of the artwork without the written permission of the sponsor is prohibited.
Through the eyes of the Lost Soldier The sky is bleeding into the dirt again, and the old hunger crawls up through my boots. It no longer matters. Time does not march out here. It pools beneath a dry creek bed, stagnant and unseen. But when the moon swells, heavy and bruised with copper rust, the cold in my ribs becomes a scald. The scrub does not burn with heat. It burns with memory. Through the tangled mallee, I see the flash of artillery, the orange-red roar of a barrage that never stopped falling, trapped forever inside the rib cages of these dead gums. I taste copper on my tongue, sharp as rifle oil and dried blood. The black heavens press down, bending the whole world inward until I am trapped inside a glass bead of fire. I pace the boundary where red light cuts into deep shadow, waiting for a relief column that lost its heading eighty years ago. Everything here is parched. I am so thirsty. But I do not want water. I want your nourishment. I want your dawn, your warm pulse, as yo...
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