Afterlife
2017 exhibition examines death and the hereafter. Spirituality and religion permeate history.
Most people have believed that at the end of life there will be an afterlife. This can take the form of heaven in Christian belief, for example, or as an after-life where the soul is to be guided on the path with the artefacts of the life lived, provided for this journey. Many cultures buried the dead with their personal effects,
weapons, pottery and food to guarantee nourishment for eternity. The grave or tomb was filled with goods considered important for the survival in the next world. In keeping with the pictorial strategies adopted in my previous works, Lineage, and Mappa Vitae (Life Maps), I have combined pictorial narratives associated both with the perspective of the individual and with those associated with collective understandings of ancestor worship and funeral practices. Each item in the installation is a repository of life narratives, historic myths, the cycle of life, ancestor worship, archetypal experiences (love, despair, faith, etc) and more personal levels of experience. These take the form of painted narrative fragments on each work. The themes depicted in this work reference life, death, and our connection to memory and the influence of
deceased relatives on the living. The figure acts as a representation of an individual’s life with the painted narratives tracing a life’s journey. The narrative is drawn from and juxtaposed with mythology, ancestral worship, and contemporary narratives as a way to connect the past, present, and future. By combining the old with the new, it allows the audience to play an active role in contemplating their own life, death and spirituality. Issue 19 - March 2017
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