On October 1st, Laurie Lipton will be opening her first solo show in New York at the Last Rites Gallery. The Los Angeles-based artist’s mastery of graphite is nothing short of stunning, and she uses these skills to create intricate compositions and complex storylines so we are definitely looking forward to seeing the drawings for Carnival of Death.
This newest body of work is inspired by The Day Of The Dead imagery, and runs just prior to the holiday, in a way commemorating the event. In what sounds to be a personal show, Lipton states “I became fascinated by the contrast between the Day Of The Dead festival in Mexico and my experience of my mother’s death. My parents were atheists. We had no ceremony, no goodbyes, no ‘closure’. My father instructed the hospital to cremate my mother and dispose of her ashes. She was gone, disappeared, zapped out of existence. I was left with Nothing… literally and metaphysically. Friends & family treated my mother’s death like an embarrassment. They awkwardly murmured Hallmark platitudes before slinking uneasily away. Death is as forbidden a topic in modern society as sex was in Victorian England.”
Here more from Lipton as well as peruse some more teaser images after the jump…
“When I visited Mexico in order to see The Day Of The Dead festival some years later, I couldn’t help feeling envious of their approach to mortality. Families gathered on graves and picnicked, whole villages turned up with food for households in mourning. Death was treated as normal, even silly. Candied skulls grinned in their hundreds and skeletons danced in a fair-ground atmosphere. I decided to rebel against my heritage and create drawings inspired by the mood and atmosphere of the Mexicans. I decided to get in-touch with my bare bones. My culture runs from death, screaming. We worship youth, beauty and the illusion that we have all the time in the world. We frantically face-lift and botox, and throw pills, creams and money at death. We fool ourselves into thinking that death only happens to other people & only losers die. Skulls always look like they’re laughing. Maybe the joke is on us?”
Photos via the gallery.
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