Painted Coffin Lid -the Guide

Remember the coffin lid I was painting ages ago?

Click on the photos if you want to see them larger.

I enjoyed painting it. I had a kind of fantasy while I was working on it that someone would buy it in preparation for their death. Perhaps they had been sick for a while and were at the point of facing that they would die. I imagined them bedridden, with the coffin lid hanging on the wall where they could see it. As I write this, I realise that might sound a bit morbid, but I wasn't seeing it that way. In my imagining, the young woman is a comfort to them. The name of the piece is 'the Guide' and she is the guide to the other side. I tried to make her loving and gentle as she looks over her shoulder to gently show you the way.

The lid had its debue last weekend at the Dying Art Exhibition at the Civic Hall in Mullumbimby NSW (Australia). The art show was part of the Carnival of Life and Death held yearly as a fundraising event by the Natural Death Centre. It was an interesting exhibit, the Civic Hall was dimly lit and people went around with flash lights to see the works. This created a hushed atmosphere, most appropriate to an art show filled with coffin lids, urns, shrines and shrouds.