Beauty in Death (The Tomb of Amyntas)

When we think of death, we think of loss, sorrow, and fear. The Tomb of Amyntas is a reverent piece that calls you to consider that death is just as natural and beautiful as birth. Not a dark place or an ending, but a new door to experience what comes beyond. The actual Tomb was carved from a mountainside very close to the homes of the Lycians who lived there. They believed that the dead were taken to the afterlife by winged creatures, so they placed them high up in the cliffside. I'm sure at the time they were carved they were a magnificent sight to behold. They are still, though they are significantly broken by erosion and vandalism. I love how the earth reclaims the places that are broken down with vegetation; new life. The setting sun in the background symbolizes an end of the life, as with the end of a day. Funny thing is, since we don't know if it is East or West, it could just as easily be a sunrise. which would suggest, rather, a new day.

Series notes: Kintsugi
I found myself fascinated with the Japanese art of Kintsugi: the repair of broken pottery with gold or silver in a way that emphasizes, rather than hides, the past damage. More broadly, the aesthetic called “wabi-sabi” is a world-view centered on recognizing the beauty in the imperfect, the impermanent, and the incomplete. This is in stark contrast to the Greek fascination with balanced perception – the belief that there is a single ideal of flawlessness to be achieved – which as so profoundly influenced Western Civilization.

In this series, I explore the beauty in brokenness. The unseen splendor of a ruined city. The serenity that is born of age and hard experience. The ephemeral delight in a flower that blooms for a day and is then gone forever. Things misshapen and decrepit, but rich in character. The new growth that arises from injured roots.

I am so weary of the pretense that we are perfect, and the expectation of unachievable perfection. We are all broken, asymmetric, suffering, and impermanent. We are all beautiful fellow pilgrims learning from the past and learning from our pain. Even the classical masterworks of architecture and sculpture are now crumbling and in ruins – becoming something more by the passage of years. They become lovely places of serenity.

I hope viewers come away from my art with a new appreciation for the little flaws all around them – and inside them – that impart depth of character and replace blandness with a sweet and piquant savor.

Where the building decays, plants take root. Cracks let the light in. It’s okay to be broken, imperfect, impermanent. There is Beauty in the Breakdown.