Shinigami, 2017

After a series of 6 deaths in one year, culminating with the passing of my mother in 2016, the subject made itself unavoidable. When I got the call that my mother was ill, I just happened to have begun working on a figure with an asian face. It sat unfinished for months while I dealt with family matters. When I finally went back to work, that floating asian face became the painting “Lightning Seed.” Unknowingly, it was to be the first of a series, prompting me to explore asian mythology around themes of dying. I landed on the story of Shinigami, a Japanese version of the Grim Reaper. It was removed enough from my reality that I could sit with my thoughts about death without being overcome by a sense of loss. In this series the Shinigami have been reimagined as courtesans of a 1920’s opium den. These figures existed in the limbo space between life and death helping others cross over, conducting a transmigration of the human soul. This bizarre group of paintings ended up being like a requiem for my mother.