Soir d’hiver · Remembering Montreal
The original French note ties winter romance to cold air, moonlight, rosy cheeks and songs by Dumas. Written after almost three years away, it returns in memory to Montreal’s old port and the air beside the river.
From Berlin to Saigon · Following an idea
The hand-drawn Berlin works continued to shape Lemonhaze’s compositions in From Berlin to Saigon. An interest in dark, ink-like structures and reflective shapes carried through drawing, AI and eventually p5.js.
A June 2024 visit to HOKMA in Hong Kong brought another connection: characters he could not read became abstract marks to his eye. Paper, ink and brush pens fed the visual feeling he later pursued in an output generated in Saigon.
Le Confessionnal · The beginning of a recurring form
Le Confessionnal marks the beginning of the multipart writing that would become a recurring part of Lemonhaze’s work. The text is embedded in the inscription itself, alongside the image.
Its first part, Redemption Road, moves through three moments of confession: memories that cannot be shared, shame, and the wish to change. The second, A Day in the Life, shifts into the everyday—working on an apartment balcony, the noise of the city at night, missed sleep, and progress on the artwork.
Dated September 17, 2024, the writing lets the raw and ordinary sit together. The diary does not resolve the confession; it shows the life continuing around it.
Cashback, Grifters’ Paradise & Grift Season · Capturing what’s ugly
The writing in these works is angry, cynical, and direct. It confronts the gap between making art and trying to exist in a market shaped by hype, speculation, and empty promises.
In Cashback, frustration with collectors and the art world turns into a refusal to keep seeking their approval. The title borrows from the 2006 film, but reverses its idea of the painter capturing beauty: “I’m here today capturing what’s ugly.” Written in Vung Tau in December 2024, it holds love for the work alongside growing bitterness toward the space around it.
Grifters’ Paradise draws a blunt line: “Disrespect intensifies and now goes both ways. I make art for myself and fuck them.” Grift Season directs that same hostility at established artists returning to Ordinals after months of silence around their releases. Reputation offers no exemption from the criticism.
Insaisissable Mirage · Always another horizon
The work’s writing asks what keeps the artist moving when reaching one goal only leads to another. Its November 2024 diary places that question on the balcony of an apartment in Vung Tau, alongside the quieter daily rhythm of cooking and spending time with his partner.
Wondrous Place · An inscription from the balcony
Wondrous Place was inscribed from the balcony of Lemonhaze’s apartment in “Sin City” on July 25, 2024—a memory he returned to on its second anniversary. The HTML quotes Billy Fury’s Wondrous Place (Catching Flies Remix).
Burned works, an enduring record
Many of the 2024 works have since been burned. They remain part of this body of work and its history, even though they no longer circulate. Their images and inscription texts remain accessible here; the supply page distinguishes the number inscribed from the number still circulating.