John Kirby BFA Painting & Drawing Thesis Fall 2016

Carving into Darkness

My aim of this project became confronting my own death. The work is inspired by music, poetry, and the death of my father. The project has become a personal journey into not only understanding death and mortality, but into also seeing the inextricable relationship of life and death. Through this process I have created a body of drawings, poems, written reflections, and constructed a lychgate. The drawings and lychgate acts as memorials and monuments to my experience of losing my father and to the relationship of life and death. The creative writings throughout this lecture express my frustrations and sorrow through contemplating the relationship of life and death. The imagery consists of the dead, decayed human body with flowers and several objects relating to my father. My practice of drawing images of the dead, as well as flowers, is a way for me to confront my death anxieties. I included images that pertain to my father forcing myself to stare death in the face. The variety of mediums and imagery represent my interpretation of representing death and life. My work serves to create analogies and metaphors to bring awareness to our inevitable yet necessary death.

19 albums

Fall 2016