Treatise on Death and other Niceties.

Treatise on Death and other Niceties.

Death has played a large part of my art practice either directly or indirectly for well over a decade. As my practice is mainly described as  ‘self portraiture’, of course a reflection on mortality would naturally surface amid the limited parameters of my work. I see death as something abstract that is forced upon any given reality and upends, even obliterates everything you know, everything you feel…your reality, gone.

My world changed in 2012. My mother in the March of that year became ill and within a couple of weeks passed away. While consoling my older brother, my only sibling, not knowing that I would be planning his funeral 5 short months after losing mum. From a family unit, I was left to be the carer of my elderly father. We coped, managed for 5 years until dad too passed away.

My entire childhood family gone. All the reality prior to those 5 years had dissipated into the ether. All the memories, holidays, birthdays, Christmas, that we lived through, the family I once had, that somewhat defined who I was as a person…gone. This year, I am keenly aware that I am now the same age as my brother was when he passed away. This sense of mortality is more acute now than it has been in previous years.

Yes, death changes you. It would be strange if it didn’t. I can only speak for myself, but as an artist I believe we internalise these aspects of life differently…if not more deeply than some. It is part of our nature to be observers of the human animal and express what we observe in a language we call art. 

Yes, I have been accused of having morbid sensibilities when it comes to my art practice. Yes, death plays a part of it but it is my way of working through the process, to gain a fundamental understanding of what it means to be human and as death is part of the human experience, explore that side within my practice.

As I said earlier, that your reality is gone once death touches you. However, a new reality emerges, not one of those halcyon carefree realities but one where we are cutely aware that time is a finite commodity and those we love to be cherished like there is no tomorrow.

Published on the anniversary of my father’s passing - September 3rd.