Mo/urning
In September 2024, both of my grandmothers passed away in the same week. I made this illustration to honor them, as well as express my feelings dealing with their passing.
The main visual theme of the work combines symbols related to mourning objects, food and utensils commonly used during the morning ritual, to explore the juxtaposition of grief and everyday life – a church candle becomes a toothbrush, an incense holder is also a teapot, and a breakfast table turns into a bed. The transition of a grieving person being thrust back into daily life after the loss is represented by these pairings. How does one go back to the normal when the normal will never be the same again?
In my search for how to describe my feelings, I found comfort in focusing on the small details, maybe that’s how I coped, or what I felt I could understand. Eggs in the morning. A tree. I’ve lost a part of my family.
Which is why the central elements are the frying pan, forcing a circular arrangement of objects around it due to its size in the frame, overlapped by a person staring in the distance. The absent-mindedness of going through the motions. But despite that sadness, life is still beautiful and whimsical, so we find a way to carry on. The pairings of the everyday and funeral objects are also a bit playful in a way. Somewhat softening the somberness associated with the ceremony of honoring the dead.
The other theme prevalent in the work is pairs of things to reference the two souls our family lost last year – two suns, sunny side up eggs, buttons, screws, breakfast plates, houses, watches, and butterflies (a symbol my mother used to describe her mother’s passing). This idea was around since the start of the work, as the two eggs were based on a picture I took of my morning meal a good while before I set out to make this illustration. And I was quite taken with the way they interacted with each other in the pan. Their shapes were so striking and spontaneous, created in an instant and solidified by heat. Far be it from me to romanticise fried eggs, but something about them stood out to me, so I knew I would turn them into an element in a future work.
Another area of the work that creates a sequence leading up to that pan is in the top left of the illustration. We have various foods: birthday cake, a Bulgarian breakfast, and a Romanian main dish, followed by a decorated cracked wheat dish called “coliva” made in Eastern Europe during times of morning. This sequence very loosely could be interpreted as a life from the sun symbolizing birth, a birthday cake for various celebrations. A breakfast for the start of the day, a hearty main course for dinner, and then a funerary dish. The cycle of life in a few meals. Which then links to the eggs made, after the fact, in the present day.
The illustration is meant to be sad but contemplative; the muted autumn sky and leaves transport us to feelings of colder days and winds ushering us indoors. But the beauty of the leaves dancing in that dark sky still shines through. Just like the value of life and memory is apparent even in times of mourning… or morning.
