Nothing Ever Really Dies
Oil and acrylic on cradled birch wooden arch panel, 70x45x3cm glows by blacklight (see additional photos)
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Nothing Ever Really Dies is a meditation on death not as an ending, but as a transformation. The point at which one form gives way to another.
The words ART IS DEAD initially appear like an epitaph: a declaration that something has ended. Yet the painting itself contradicts them. Life has already begun to reclaim the letters. Mushrooms fruit from them, insects gather around them, ivy climbs through the composition and tiny organisms emerge from places that appear decayed. Even under UV light, hidden elements suddenly glow back into life. The apparent death of art, like death in nature, becomes fertile ground for what comes next!
The tombstone-shaped support deliberately gives the painting the appearance of a memorial. The words become an inscription, as though we are standing in front of the grave of Art itself. But instead of presenting a sterile monument to something lost, the tombstone is teeming with activity. Death here is an ecosystem. Each creature was chosen because it participates in, witnesses or symbolises this continual cycle.
The raven, long associated with death, prophecy and the threshold between worlds, sits almost like the guardian of the piece. Ravens are drawn to carrion, placing them literally at the boundary between death and the life that feeds upon it.
The death’s-head hawkmoth carries perhaps the most explicit memento mori symbolism, its skull-like marking making mortality visible on the body of a living creature. Moths themselves also embody transformation: disappearing into one form before emerging as another.
The cicada takes this idea even further. It spends years hidden underground before emerging, shedding its old body and appearing in its final winged form. Across cultures it has become a symbol of resurrection, immortality and renewal , a creature that seems to return from the earth itself.
The dragonfly is another ancient symbol of transformation. Much of its existence is spent beneath the surface of the water before it undergoes an extraordinary change and takes to the air. It represents the idea that what looks like an ending may simply be a transition into an entirely different state of being.
The frog occupies two worlds, beginning life in water before transforming into a terrestrial animal. Its metamorphosis makes it a natural symbol of regeneration, rebirth and the ability of life to continually remake itself.
The mouse represents the small, persistent life that continues around and after us, adaptable, resourceful and capable of inhabiting the ruins left behind by others.
The snail brings a quieter symbolism. Its spiral shell echoes one of nature’s recurring forms , cycles within cycles, while the animal itself is associated with the earth, decay, moisture and the slow processes through which organic matter returns to the landscape.
The spider is both death-bringer and creator. It kills in order to survive, yet simultaneously spins something intricate and beautiful from its own body. Its web becomes a symbol of interconnectedness: nothing exists independently and nothing disappears without affecting what comes next.
At the bottom of the painting, the animal skull makes death unavoidable. Yet even this most recognisable symbol of mortality has become a habitat. Mushrooms emerge from and around it, turning remains into the foundation for new growth. The skull is therefore not simply a memento mori, but evidence that matter is continually being repurposed.
The fungi and mushrooms growing throughout the lettering are central to the meaning of the work. Fungi are nature’s great recyclers. They break down what has died and return its nutrients to the ecosystem, making future life possible. Here, they literally grow from the declaration that art is dead.
The ivy performs a similar role visually. It creeps in from the edge of the tombstone and begins to reclaim it, just as vegetation eventually covers abandoned buildings, monuments and graves. Evergreen and extraordinarily persistent, ivy has also historically carried associations with endurance, immortality and eternal life.
Under UV light, another layer of the painting reveals itself. Fungi and tiny details that appear relatively quiet in daylight suddenly fluoresce, suggesting a world that was present all along but invisible to us. It reinforces the central idea of the painting: absence is not necessarily absence, and an ending may simply be something continuing beyond the limits of what we can see.
So while ART IS DEAD appears to be the statement at the centre of the work, the real title provides its answer: Nothing Ever Really Dies.Bodies become ecosystems. Decay becomes nourishment. Creatures metamorphose. Matter changes form. Ideas disappear and return transformed…And perhaps art does too.
