I have no clue, why I´m drawing skulls. It is just a motif which has been coming to my mind since around 2008. I first heard about the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), when I spent 3 months in Los Angeles around 10 years ago . The holiday is celebrated mainly in Mexico and focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died.
Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts. I really like the colorful, cool and relaxed way “death” is handled on this occasion.
A few days ago I remembered the first skulls I drew. They were for the international moleskine exchange in the year 2008. The skulls shown below were drawn in Steve´s moly from Moly_x_19. To my surprise I saw my second entry in his moleskine, drawn a few months later. It is a set of 3 insects – even a fly.
And when I take a look at the drawings for my current exhibition, it surprises me: Skulls & Wings and the fly shows up too.
For two years now I´ve been having the idea of drawing 400 skulls. Adn this summer I started the project with Skull #1 (shown at the top). Who would have thought, that two months later this skull would be part of my own first show? Life is full of surprises.
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