POPPY FIELD

This print features a botanical illustration of poppies, hallucinated by a deep learning model and etched into the medium of its own origin: printed electronic circuits.

The work interrogates the geopolitics of the Afghanistan War, where the cultivation of opium poppies became the Taliban's financial lifeline. The piece captures a jarring duality: pastoral fields in a rugged landscape, harvested by Kalashnikov-wielding fighters to produce a psychoactive commodity that converts distant euphoria into local conflict.

A complex cycle of transmutation is at play here, moving across axes of sun, chemistry, capital, fire, and lead. The circuit board itself creates a visual dialogue between two histories of conflict financing: the iconography of Afghan war rugs and the graphic language of American WWI War Bonds.