Evie Richner

Burial #31 (2018)
ink on digital print
10 x 7.5 in.

My art is all in a moment. It is as innocent as that. There seems to be in me the need to not only capture these moments, but also Memories erode. People pass away. Loss and death are common human experiences, and as we age, we are all confronted by the deaths of those around us, as well as by our own mortality. While some accept these experiences as a part of life, many people—including myself—struggle with these inevitabilities on a daily basis.

In my Burial series, I explore personal loss and the memorialization of those who are no longer living. Each piece serves as a burial, but also a memorial. Working on top of photographs of deceased relatives, I am physically burying them in a shroud of hand-drawn feathers. Through burial, we acknowledge loss; the person is removed from our lives. The pieces become a signifier, like a gravestone, of a person who once lived. These signifiers also serve as a physical connection to those who, through burial, have become physically disconnected from our lives.

Death is often an avoided subject, a gaping chasm at the end of each of our lives around which we tiptoe, but birth and death are the two human experiences which we all share. To die is to be human. (TN)

© Evie Richner