Leon Aarts '[The Fireplace in Hanmer' (c. 2016, acrylic on canvas)sold

A hearth that devours its own warmth. The Fireplace in Hanmer is a domestic inferno frozen mid-collapse, logs rendered as charred vertebrae, flames as crimson tongues licking a black void, the mantel a fractured lintel about to cave. The fireplace not as comfort, but as maw, the home not as refuge, but as crematorium. The paper support buckles like overheated timber, turning the work into a relic of its own burning.

The Fireplace in Hanmer is Aarts’ most visceral interior, a domestic crematorium where comfort combusts. Mount it above a real (cold) hearth; the contrast will make viewers flinch.

Score (out of 10): 9.5 A hearth that eats its young—cozy as a kiln, warm as a wound.