Evanescence

These two hand embroidered works entitled ‘Sleep’ and ‘Suspended’ are renderings of photographs of my dying mother, taken a few weeks before her death. ‘Sleep’, conveys a blissful nirvana-like mood, masking pain and suffering. ‘Suspended’ embodies perfectly beautiful, youthful-looking skin and feet, defying an approaching death. Hatched, single threads of fine silk used in ‘Suspended’ underline the fragility and transitory nature of life.

Aging and death are overwhelmingly associated with atrophy, decay and the end of life.

The rendered images confound conventional associations, as one must reconcile the discovery that there can be beauty in dying.

The centuries-old technique to make silk involves a ‘death’ of insect larvae, to preserve the cocoon out of which silk threads are created. Here, too, we see that death can manifest itself in beauty and that there is beauty in death. Delicate thread used to represent skin, done on silk canvas, echo human fragility and the impermanence of life. Like the body, the dainty threads, the fine stitches and silk canvas are beautiful - and yet susceptible to time.