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Writer's pictureHebe McKenzie

Death in Art

Updated: Nov 11, 2022

Death isn't always the end



Throughout the last few years whilst studying Fine Art at the University on the Creative Arts in Farnham, I have found my artwork has slowly started to develop a style, I discovered I had a very strong connection with nature, and also the topic of death which has been a reoccurring theme within my recent artwork.

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living" - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Death is such a taboo topic and also a scary, uncomfortable one, it's something that isn't really spoken about, it isn't brought up without people getting upset or uncomfortable, so with my artwork, I want to take away the scariness of death, I want to make people see it as a new beginning, as not the end of someones life, but the beginning of something new.

Dead Things

A lot of the materials I use within my art are things that have died that I have collected, that included, animal bones, insects, feathers, shells, lichen, twigs, leaves, and many more, some of these items one wouldn't think of as being 'dead' but they are no longer in use and living their purposeful life, the lichen isn't getting moisture from the tree it was once attached to so it's all dried up, the feathers are no longer growing from the bird they once belonged to, these items no longer have a purpose so I take it upon myself to give them a second life, it's up to those of us who are still breathing to keep the memories of the dead alive, no matter how small or large.


"Life is the art of dying." - Atticus

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