Conceptually, memento mori has been around for millennia. Ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Seneca reflected upon the nature of mortality in ancient Greece. And during Roman triumphs, a handful of accounts document how a general would be accompanied by a companion or a slave who was tasked with reminding him he would eventually perish.
We often think of memento mori visually in relation to Dutch Golden Age paintings, where skulls or rotting fruit surrounded by insects served as reminders of the fleetingness of life. Latin for “remember you will die,” the phrase can be traced to a biblical passage. And for Melbourne-based artist Hieu Thien Nguyen, who works as kelogsloops, death is a constant reminder in fantastical, dreamlike watercolors.
Often centering around a young woman with snow-white hair and repeating motifs like towering cumulus clouds, a black wolf, foxes, and other woodland creatures, kelogsloops’ paintings explore “the intensity of love, the inevitability of loss, and the quiet acceptance that comes with knowing nothing lasts forever,” says a statement for the artist’s forthcoming exhibition Love, Death, & All Her Friends at Corey Helford Gallery.
Emotions, and perhaps life forces, literally swirl through kelogsloops’ paintings via starlight, mist, and wind. Pieces like “The Waiting Room” and “The Carousel” suggest gentle, liminal spaces between the waking and sleeping world—reality and whatever else may be out there. Exploring the boundary between awareness and unconsciousness, “there is no bitterness,” the artist says, “but instead an honest look at what it means to love something, knowing it won’t last forever, but to find beauty in that anyway.”
Love, Death, & All Her Friends opens on September 19 and continues through October 24 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.
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