Station 13

Underworld (detail), pencil, charcoal, paper, body bag, leaves, earth. Photograph by Joe Tareha.

Station 13 was not one of the preferences I listed. When asked to consider it, the idea of working with what I hadn’t chosen appealed, like I was given it. The text provided spoke of the grief of people left behind after someone dies, specifically that of a mother seeing her child die. The figurative imagery planned for my initial preferences would connect strongly. But a darker, more abstracted thing kept appearing in my mind's eye: a large dark shape which looked like something fallen and dead, a winged creature, feathers - or was it an ominous black leathery beast, ready to take the dead to hell. I recalled from childhood something about Jesus Christ's descending to hell first for a while after the death on the cross.  

Underworld expresses both the grief and the darkness of mourning: and descent into hell, because of love and sacrifice. In context here, I felt it important to allow space for the work to simply sit with the grief and darkness, of when it seemed all hope was gone.