This painting serves as a profound visual metaphor for systemic collapse. The intricate skull woven out of the natural habitat is the ultimate allegory for a society meticulously building its own democratic demise from the inside out and discusses how we humans are the ultimate architects our own undoing, from global climate destruction to political entropy.
I used African Weaver Birds as symbols for humanity as, like people, they are extremely social and form unsustainable colonies that ultimately take over their environment and destroy it. The skull as a symbol is deeply ingrained in human psyche dating back to Roman times (Memento Mori) with the intricacy of the woven grass symbolizing how meticulously we as humans work to construct technology that will ultimately be our undoing (form industry to AI).
The birds are all looking to the left (indicating the political left) to save them. This is a strong personal statement stemming from the downfall of American democracy and how society was looking to a conceptual framework to save them while still passively or directly contributing to their own destruction.
The name “Nona Morta” refers to two of the personifications of destiny in Roman mythology. Nona, originally the goddess of birth is a weaver who spins the thread of destiny whereas Morta, the goddess of death, cuts it.
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WATERCOLOR: 18 × 24 in
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