Carlos Quinto Kemm’s Head Reliquary is a solemn, ornate meditation on power, sanctity, decay, and the uneasy convergence of divinity and mortality. Centered like a sacred icon, this work unfolds as a ceremonial tableau—one part altar, one part sarcophagus, one part cosmic enigma. Every inch is steeped in the visual language of reverence, yet it is haunted by an undercurrent of quiet menace, as if the viewer is looking into the ossuary of an ancient and morally ambiguous deity.

At the heart of the composition sits a monumental head—golden, leonine, and riddled with cracks—hovering somewhere between human, beast, and god. Its face is textured with fragmentation, its skin more like bark or ancient plaster than flesh. Wings flare from either side of the head, not as symbols of freedom, but as mythic appendages—emblems of ascension or divine judgment. An intricate crown of spines and architectural structures forms a kind of mechanical halo. This central visage is not just worshiped—it is enshrined, deified, and dissected. It suggests a god long dead or perhaps a symbol of power so enduring that even in decomposition, it commands devotion.

The reliquary base beneath the head is constructed like a baroque altar chest—rich in encrusted jewels, archaic carvings, and forbidden relics. At the center glows a prominent black skull encased in a circular golden seal, signaling the memento mori at the core of all empire, all divinity, all constructed myth. Death, here, is not denied but enshrined—offered as an object of worship. Flanking this altar are two winged, sculptural female figures in flowing garments. Each one stands atop a turtle, and each turtle in turn stands upon a large outstretched hand rising from below—layers of symbolism stacked like cosmological scaffolding. In their hands, the women hold eggs—symbols of origin, fertility, and potential—evoking a timeless cycle of birth supported by ancient wisdom and primal force.

Around the figure’s head radiates an architectural mandorla of golden rays, circuit-like glyphs, and clockwork geometry. These elements fuse ecclesiastical splendor with technological ambition—an allusion perhaps to civilizations that worshipped not just gods, but their own engineered dominance. Behind this intricate machinery, the background flutters with Byzantine tapestries, molten surfaces, and sacred maps, all pulsing in deep reds and burnt golds—colors of sanctity, war, and sacrifice.

The piece is bordered in authentic shed snakeskin—not simulated or symbolic, but the genuine cast-off skin of a living creature. This detail is more than ornamental; it speaks directly to the theme of transformation. The serpent is not just a biblical or mythological reference—it is a living emblem of cyclical renewal, of growth through release. The shed skin wraps the image like a sacred perimeter, a liminal veil between death and rebirth, decay and transcendence.

Reflecting on the central question of the piece, Quinto Kemm states, “I think about what we choose to enshrine. What survives in our reliquaries—is it wisdom, or the myth of power? The relic becomes sacred not because of truth, but because of the story we build around it.”

In Head Reliquary, Kemm invites the viewer into a space of paradox: sacred and profane, majestic and decayed, exalted and defiled. It is not a portrait but a vestige—a visual fossil of power deified long after its humanity has been stripped away. The work does not demand belief. It demands reflection.