Artist Statement –Letters From the Dead

The level of closeness western cultures have had with their dead has fluctuated throughout the last 2000 years. Starting in late antiquity, the cult of the saints marked a significant change in the relationship between the living and the dead. Prior to the Roman adoption of Christianity, the remains of venerated martyrs (later saints) occupied cemeteries built outside the walls of Roman cities. As Christianity became more tolerated, human remains were moved inside the cities' walls, initially, as saints' relics, then, as graves of common people, who wished to be buried near the saints. To the faithful, the saints formed a special class of dead, one that allowed their spirits to move in and among the living, pass between the membrane of this world and the other, and guide the faithful through earthly and heavenly tribulations. Thus while the living occupied the church above ground, the dead occupied the church cemetery below, co-mingling in a sanctified way and forming a single community. This unguarded relationship between the living and the dead remained in place over the next 2000 years, until modern secular society transformed our relationship with the dead to one of fear and denial.

This art series, inspired by the reliquaries of saints, will restore the collective space between the living and the dead. Each box contains a human bone(s), and scenes painted to represent or symbolize a significant part of a person's life or death, and a short biography of the extraordinary life and circumstances by which they lived. It is hoped that magical stories and elaborately decorated boxes will combine to create a unique and multi dimensional viewing experience.

I have aspired to create works of art sufficiently worthy and reverential to hold the remains of another human being. It is my sincerest hope that those who bones they hold, approve of their homage.

Research Citation: The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying