VOLCANO
ashes
fall,
Volcano is a project that required a lot of planning and preparation to transform my location into a burial, a mourning place, but also a place of ritual and rebirth. I’ve created many pieces that explore concepts of duality and parallelism, and this piece embodies those same themes. My initial location was the corner area by the train gate near the stairs, and this first location guided me into developing my concept for the burial pyre. I thought a lot about living and dead spaces, destroyed or deconstructed spaces, and spaces affected by things in their landscape; I had considerations on creating a crater and meteorite, or some type of black ocean. I even thought about creating a wall landscape. Then I started thinking about volcanoes and their biblical meanings; verses that I was using to develop my concept were Isaiah 29:6, Joel 2:1-1, and Revelation 6:12-14. What I found significant and meaningful about these bible verses was how natural disasters served as both allegorical and literal manifestations of the Second Coming. I wanted to explore the idea of a “Second Coming” in a more human and earthly/grounded way, which developed my concept of human/the living’s death and memorial with nature’s death and memorial, and paralleling that with the idea of rebirth and transition to the next life.
Volcanoes have always been fascinating and almost unfathomable natural structures to me, and the effects of a volcanic eruption on the surrounding landscape come with their own dichotomy. Volcanic eruptions destroy and erase the land and living things around it, plunging the earth into silence and blackened rock. It creates a massive grave, a burial. But volcanic eruptions can also breed new life after the earth beneath it settles, with new forests and ecosystems growing over time. Life is reborn again. It’s a ritual and a cycle. This is where my core idea for the funeral pyre came from - the dichotomy of death/memorial and rebirth/ritual.
I knew that I wanted to create a life-size pyre that felt and looked like it had been used before, and the canvas piece overtop would represent the body in three different ways: the body of man, the body of the volcano, and the body of the earth. I intentionally choose to collect tree bark and sticks for the stick pyre beneath the body pyre with the connection to the devastation of forests by both volcanoes and wildfires, but also the ritualistic aspects of wood and cultural funeral pyres. The materials I used were also significant, as the spray paint would represent the deadly gases of the volcano, but also the blackening of the earth, the loose charcoal would indicate the charred and burned earth, the liquid graphite would represent the igneous rock, and the flow of the hot magma.
Every element of this piece was important to the narrative I wanted to explore, down to the location change, as the area outside the station’s gallery space felt more spiritual, ceremonial, and reverent.
6 ft. x 4 ft.
Liquid graphite, loose charcoal, compressed charcoal, chalk on canvas
3 ft. x 7 in. x 20 in. (stick pyre)
Wood, sticks, tree bark, liquid graphite, powdered plaster, black spray paint, gesso
Wood, sticks, tree bark, liquid graphite, loose charcoal, compressed charcoal, powdered plaster, canvas, black spray paint, chalk, gesso
6ft x 2.5ft x 30 in (body pyre)
Wood, sticks, tree bark, liquid graphite, loose charcoal, compressed charcoal, powdered plaster, canvas, black spray paint, chalk, gesso
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