Alyssa McLaughlin

Ever since I was young I have always had a fascination with death, more importantly the intimacy and complexity behind the process. While most wouldn’t see death as an intimate thing, I believe there is a certain beauty in how the transfer of the soul to the afterlife creates such a deep emotional c...

Ever since I was young I have always had a fascination with death, more importantly the intimacy and complexity behind the process. While most wouldn’t see death as an intimate thing, I believe there is a certain beauty in how the transfer of the soul to the afterlife creates such a deep emotional connection to everyone who experiences the loss. In my work I strive to capture how we the living have connections with death and all the emotions that entails. To me, death is something we all have to come to terms with eventually and I find that whenever I think about death theres so many questions that consume me- Where do we go when we die? How important is our soul? The most pressing question I base my work around is - How are the living still connected to those who have passed? In this piece I wanted to show how the physical body becomes bones and thus reborn again into a person through the cycle of reincarnation. At the center of life and death, we maintain our soul and humanity which are represented as the heart.