Grief of an Adolescent

My pieces are a catharsis for me in my personal exploration of grief and loss. Even though death can be universally experienced and understood, my work is deeply personal. It is an outcropping of devastating grief that came with the loss of two siblings. I chose to paint my own body decaying over time to consider funerary practices in a metaphysical look at the process of time. In Judeo-Christian religion there is the belief that humans were once created from literal earth in the form of clay and upon death the physical body returns to the earth through a process of decay. Modern day funerals in the United States usually involve one of two options: burial in a coffin underground or cremation. Both can involve ceremony, but eventually the body in the coffin will decay to bones and the cremated remains can be spread wherever the deceased wishes. The bones will remain forever in a box tucked away from the world while the cremated remains can be reunited with the earth. My work considers the cyclical process of life and death, the coming from earth as well as the return.