![]() And in that space of isolation, I have been trying to get back to some of the sonic building blocks that made me want to start making music in the first place. I came back to Nashville during the shutdown in March to be close to my parents. Part of that bearing witness for me on a personal level has been trying to step away from my familiar sense of self-both the parts I might feel good about and definitely the parts I abhor or want to change. And thus, as a psychiatrist friend put it, we must bear witness. Everyone has encountered loss this year-many have suffered a great deal of loss-but no one who is at least conscious is immune to this time of change. This year has been an ongoing series of mental health highs and lows while just as an individual I try to reckon on a daily basis with the transformation, pain, growing awareness, and, hopefully, growing empathy we are experiencing. ![]() But these paintings force us to bear witness to the contrasts of life, death, and impermanence, and if 2020 has taught me about anything, it is this concept of “bearing witness” both on a personal and political level. Reading an article about the history of ephemera in art led me to the concept of vanitas, and I wanted to find a way to pivot that in a more, well, hopeful direction. ![]() What struck me about this was not the representation of death in a macabre/morbid way, but rather that very sense of ephemerality and impermanence. The concept of “vanitas” in medieval art refers to the juxtaposition of macabre symbols of death with material ephemera in order to illustrate the impermanence of earthly things.
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