"Petite Morte"

Inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead. A blissful death portrait to be placed at the altar for Día de los Muertos.

Petite Morte takes its name from the French, "the little death", the old and tender phrase for the ecstatic surrender of orgasm. Here, a reclining figure lies in blissful repose upon a bed of rose-strewn pink, one arm draped behind her head in a moment of pure release. Rendered in the beloved tradition of Day of the Dead, she reminds us that pleasure and mortality are old companions, that to surrender fully to ecstasy is to touch, however briefly, the edge of death and return to life renewed. A border of dancing skeletons celebrates around her, joyful, unashamed, and gloriously alive. Painted in nineteen ninety-six.