Constructed Relics explores the objects, memories, and fragments people leave behind.

Rather than discovering artifacts from the past, the series deliberately constructs them. Paintings and their frames are conceived as a single work, built through custom-cast elements, resin, encaustic, oil, and mixed media to create objects that feel as though they have already carried a history.

The frame is not decoration or support—it is part of the narrative itself. Together, image and structure become contemporary relics, blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture, memory, and invention.

Constructed Relics asks what future generations might inherit from us, and whether memory is something we preserve or something we actively create.

The series began by questioning where an artwork truly begins and ends.

Instead of treating the frame as a secondary element, Papayon started building it as an integral part of the work itself, developing custom molds and combining casting techniques with painting, resin, encaustic, concrete and mixed media.

As the series continues to evolve, each piece becomes a self-contained artifact—a contemporary relic designed to carry stories across time.

• Memory and preservation.
• The relationship between object and image.
• Time and transformation.
• Personal and collective history.
• The construction of meaning through material.
• Presence and absence.
• The creation of contemporary relics for the future.