the scales.

artist tom bagshaw has slowly been creeping into my orbit. i'm into the soft focus, desaturated, pale, gloomy coloring he employs and his delightful marriage of realistic figures with cartoonish figures. his newer work especially. this piece, 'there's only one' illustrates a notion i've had conflicting feelings over the last few years & still have trouble putting proper words to: the experience of death as it relates as a muse to visual art, writing, jewelry & how it is in life.

it was in middle school that i feel i first was introduced to the macabre side of things. once i saw the addams family and more importantly the little strangeling christina ricci portray the darkly deadpan wednesday addams, something sparked. death became imbued with a sort of potent romance. it wasn't until it cut into the center of my life that i began to realize its more tumultuous/wretched/maddening aspects.

what remains, for me, is a sort of balancing of the mysterious & often inspiring notions of the afterlife/ghosts  and the very real effects the death of someone can leave on the living. & i think, for me at least, this painting in some way portrays the essence of this intriguingly contradictory occurrence.