Oil on Stretched Canvas
18″ x 24″ x 2″
Joey Havlock and Rhonda Havlock, Collaboration
Call of the Candlesnake
A flame becomes a voice.
A voice becomes a presence.
And from the molten edge of perception, it coils into being.
Call of the Candlesnake is a visceral eruption of color and consciousness—a moment where still life fractures into something alive, sentient, and watching. At first glance, a bouquet blooms wildly from a vessel of electric blues and yellows, bursting with chaotic vitality against a burning red void. But this is no ordinary arrangement. These flowers feel summoned—painted not from observation, but from ignition.
Below, the white candle melts into motion. Its wax no longer obeys gravity. It stretches, twists, and slithers—transforming into the Candlesnake itself. A spectral entity born of heat, ritual, and time. The wick, once a source of light, becomes a signal—calling something ancient from beneath the surface of the scene.
The table dissolves into abstraction, a battlefield of color where reality breaks down into raw emotion—thick strokes, violent drips, electric collisions. Every mark feels like a decision made at speed, guided by instinct rather than control. The energy is relentless. Alive.
Encased in a rugged, almost altar-like wooden frame with iron corner guards, the piece feels less like a painting and more like an artifact—something discovered rather than created. The engraved nameplate grounds it in language, but the work itself resists explanation.
This is a painting about transformation.
About the thin line between object and spirit.
About what happens when something as simple as a candle refuses to burn out quietly—and instead chooses to awaken.
The Candlesnake is not decoration.
It is a signal.
And it is calling.
