ResonanceOfRuin

Resonance of Ruin: Deconstructing Babel through Charcoal is a quiet reflection on the myth of the Tower of Babel—on ambition, collapse, and the way its story still speaks to the present. Jorge Da Cruz draws from the visual world of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, reimagining that iconic structure through a contemporary lens. With charcoal as his medium, he creates a space where history and now sit side by side.

At the center of the series is the tower—fragile, layered, and built from a mix of styles and times. It looks as if it’s been rebuilt again and again. Each level carries signs of effort and exhaustion, as though every reach toward the sky carries the weight of earlier attempts. The drawing is intricate but never showy, dense with marks that speak to the slow, determined labor behind human ambition.

Charcoal isn’t just the material—it’s part of the message. Its textures shape both the atmosphere and the structure itself. The tower has a softness to it, almost unstable, while darker areas hold it down, giving it weight. Below, water spreads quietly, and small boats drift through it—like pieces of what’s been left behind. They might be fragments of survival, or quiet gestures of retreat.

But this isn’t about destruction. It’s about what holds on. The work looks at the rhythm of building and undoing—how histories, both personal and collective, pile up in layers. It asks us to sit with the limits of our intentions, and to consider how fragile any shared meaning can be.

Resonance of Ruin doesn’t try to retell the myth. It steps inside it. There’s no neat conclusion—just a space to reflect. On failure. On repetition. And on the human urge to keep making, shaping, reaching—especially in the shadow of what we’ve already lost.