‘The unreliable narrator,’ a term coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Boothe’s The Rhetoric of Fiction, describes a first-person narrator whose credibility is compromised. A character of this description might severely misrepresent the truth, conceal aspects of the story, or is in some other way untrustworthy to the reader. In this thesis project, I compare both my role as the artist and the audience’s viewership to the role of the narrator, each of us bringing aspects of the narrative to the painted work. This paper, as a support to the visual work, describes some historical significance of the figure of Death in painting, as well as examples of the ways in which Death is personified as a mythological figure, specifically within the realm of Slavic folklore. The paper discusses the visual allegory of the skeleton, connotations of the depiction of monstrosity, and how this language relates to depictions of modern symbology of human-made materials and obsolescence. Lastly, it includes a description of the visual work and methodology, including creative writing samples which support the narrative of the paintings. These artworks seek to understand the concept of death as myth, and our relation to material processes that inherently reshape our observations of nature and natural decay. As our world and landscapes change, we are asked to walk inside the domain of death, sit on its cloak and listen to its stories, to find our own path forward. The future is a monster at the gate, but we approach it nonetheless.