Behind The Artworks: Tria Prima - The Mortificatio (2025)

The album cover was designed by American artist Grace Ace Blood. The cover art depicts the cover of an old book called Mortificatio, created in the style of Higer. Mortificatio is an alchemical Book of the Dead. Mortification is an a priori condition of human existence. The soul is already tormented, the psyche is already shaken. The stage of mortification is not a quantitative method (plus torment, minus torment), but a quality of the soul. Another manifestation of the heroism of the Ego is to think that we can exclude our mortification or ‘cleanse’ our complexes. In the words of James Hillman, a complex is ‘an extremely unstable structure or organisation of psychic elements, a set of ideas subject to particular changes and fluctuations, united by an emotional archetypal core: a plexus, a constellation of intertwined motifs.’ A complex, ‘insecure’ person suffers and vacillates, and their extremity is expressed in intricate images, gestures, and memories.