“Proteome”

Dimensions: 14” x 14”

Medium: Oil on wood

Artist: Greg Busch

A massive eggshell—fractured, emptied—rests in a barren dreamscape of hoodoo spires and Martian dunes. It is both monument and aftermath. In Greg Busch’s Proteome, the egg becomes a biological metaphor: once full of infinite potential, now quietly cracked open by unseen forces.

The painting’s title, Proteome, references the complete set of proteins expressed by a cell, tissue, or organism—essentially, the language of life written in shifting forms. Here, that language is reduced to a haunting silence. No creature emerges. Only absence speaks.

The juxtaposition of scientific precision and surreal terrain reflects Busch’s ongoing dialogue between organic fragility and philosophical vastness. It asks: when life breaks open, what remains of its structure? What meaning lingers in the shell?

This is origin and extinction in one frame.