Forbidden Death, Mixed Media
35" X 50"
2012
Label:
Death has always interested me as a forbidden subject that has become taboo in modernity. What was once a collective rite has become overtly sexualized and hidden, the space of death moving from the privacy of one’s home to the institutionalized space of the hospital. In this piece, I attempt to conceptualize death as a romantic act, moving in its own right. My morbid fascination with death is a sublimation of its current interpretation as wild and forbidden. I do not ask the viewer to shrink from death, but to understand it as natural phenomena, whether it is self-inflicted, such as the suicidal victim or the anorexic, or due to natural causes.
Much of my previous work has been inspired by Rauschenberg, abstract expressionism, and contemporary artist, Andy Saftel out of Nashville, TN. Forbidden Death again draws on such artists both physically and conceptually, its first layer a collage of varying artists’ works taped onto the canvas with blue painters tape. I’ve applied the acrylic densely, mostly using a palette knife, to create a multilayered universe in which to add varying realistic and/or abstract gems. By dividing the composition with strong horizontal and vertical lines, I attempt to add stability to a world that is otherwise a cacophonous jungle of images. My concept for this piece drew on past readings of Durkheim’s Suicide and Philippe Ariés Western Attitudes towards Death and my desire to visually describe our culture’s view of death as a forbidden space.
Death has always interested me as a forbidden subject that has become taboo in modernity. What was once a collective rite has become overtly sexualized and hidden, the space of death moving from the privacy of one’s home to the institutionalized space of the hospital. In this piece, I attempt to conceptualize death as a romantic act, moving in its own right. My morbid fascination with death is a sublimation of its current interpretation as wild and forbidden. I do not ask the viewer to shrink from death, but to understand it as natural phenomena, whether it is self-inflicted, such as the suicidal victim or the anorexic, or due to natural causes.
Much of my previous work has been inspired by Rauschenberg, abstract expressionism, and contemporary artist, Andy Saftel out of Nashville, TN. Forbidden Death again draws on such artists both physically and conceptually, its first layer a collage of varying artists’ works taped onto the canvas with blue painters tape. I’ve applied the acrylic densely, mostly using a palette knife, to create a multilayered universe in which to add varying realistic and/or abstract gems. By dividing the composition with strong horizontal and vertical lines, I attempt to add stability to a world that is otherwise a cacophonous jungle of images. My concept for this piece drew on past readings of Durkheim’s Suicide and Philippe Ariés Western Attitudes towards Death and my desire to visually describe our culture’s view of death as a forbidden space.
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