Elegy

39" x 48"/100 x 122cm

Oil on aluminium panel

2022

SOLD

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This is the last of three paintings addressing my complex feelings about the damage we’re doing to the earth, and about our bleak future as a species. This has been a very difficult and personal series to paint, dealing as it does with my own grief at the destruction of life on this staggeringly beautiful planet.
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. In this group, Katy is Mother Earth, grieving for the death of nature. From one hand a branch grows and is burned and dying. Above the other hand floats a dead bird. Mother Earth is accompanied by the spirits of grief and despair, who can offer no comfort, only acceptance. The background is a smoke filled forest.