Ace of Luck and Capital – 24" x 36"

Original Painting from the Card Collection

If you prefer to experience and interpret the meaning of this piece on your own, feel free to skip the description below. I believe in giving just enough context to guide your journey without taking away your personal encounter with the work.

This 24" x 36" painting is part of my standard format for the Card Collection—a body of work that reimagines traditional playing cards as portals into systems of power, symbolism, and history. Each piece in the series offers hints of its deeper meaning while leaving space for your own reading and reflection.

In Ace of Luck and Capital, two fictional world powers take center stage: the Clovers and the Diamonds. The Clovers represent nations rich in talent and natural resources but constrained by systemic oppression. The Diamonds, on the other hand, echo the legacy of blood diamonds—symbolizing nations and powers that build wealth through extraction, control, and the subjugation of others.

Skull-shaped teeth anchor the middle of the card, serving as a visual thread of death, sacrifice, and the human cost that often lies hidden beneath capital and conquest. This piece explores the tension within capitalism—between luck and labor, between brilliance and brutality—and asks what balance, if any, can truly exist.

Sprinkled with layered meaning, this work invites you to sit with it, to breathe, and to decide for yourself where you stand in the systems it mirrors.