As is often the case in my work, balance pervades this piece. In fact, in Enigma, this is particularly true: it is equally beautiful when viewed from both ‘front’ and ‘back’. From this side, the central motif is a brooch representing the Tibetan deity Rahu, matched with ouma’s earrings. Crocodile heads have been transformed into beautiful – almost spacecraft-like – shapes. The blue butterfly at the apex is framed in dynamic, dialectic flight: is it being caught or is it escaping? Is it life or is it death?

This kind of contradiction is always part of our human condition. Our bodies bring both joy and pain. Pleasure and also disease. We love. But we kill.

I once asked my angels for guidance with an open-ended question: what should I do? The unexpected answer came back: stop killing insects. (Just like the Jains, who move through the world with a little broom in front of them to gently clear away ants.) And yet I have made insects part of my art. I am a flawed human; an imperfect David holding a dead Goliath Beetle.

In tarot, the Chariot is all about movement and travel. Except, of course, when it is not. Yin, meet yang. Sometimes you have to be still – or else risk speeding off on a tangent. Indeed, we can spend a lifetime moving, and never take a moment to listen to our spirit. That’s why I pay attention to my dreams: for me, they’re more precious than gold. (Life has been compared to a ‘lucid dream’, after all.) If you ask the right questions, you may get the right answers.

The blue butterfly was the last element I added to Enigma. Hope.

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Photography: Russel Smith / Text: Jonathan Bain