“Oh! grief is fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of its woe from every form and change around; it incorporates itself with all living nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it fills all things, and, like light, it gives its own colors to all.“ - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
This series is dedicated to my friend. Each illustration is meant to be an organic, unpretentious exploration of an emotional moment. Together they represent the lonely, mercurial, and isolating experience of grief.
The poems are inspired by the Japanese cultural practice of writing jisei, or death poems. Traditionally written on one's deathbed, they often reflected the transient and impermanent nature of life.
A tender fissure
No longer in unison
Empty spaces full of
Remembrances and dreams
Injurious to reason
Darkling, I give vent
To selfish immolation
Furnace of the heart
Burning incandescently
Now I am Vesuvius
I'm losing the thread
Of futility's arrow
Pleas and promises
Have shut my eyes wide open
Exposing all illusions
In winter laden
Funereal silence
We try to speak but
Words no longer exist
Only eternity remains
The only thing left
Admitting you're defeated
Oh, lamentation
In bitter resignation
The art of acquiescence