"Dear people who are about to leave Earth" by PQHAÜS
(Acrylic on canvas / 30x40 inches / 2022)
This work is about individuals that are about to leave earth regardless of their willingness.
The cut finish line in front of each individual borrows a metaphor of a marathon, it means that their journey on earth has been completed entirely, and they no longer have any path to walk on.
And the way each individual has a different posture represents how we as human beings react to death differently. For instance, a child (on the left) is looking back cluelessly because he doesn’t know how to acknowledge the idea of what death is. On the other hand, the man behind the kid has accepted and acknowledged his death. And this is exactly why we cannot witness any dramatic emotional reaction from his posture.
For the two men behind him (in the center), the old male is pulling the teeanger’s finish line to his side to prevent him from cutting his own finish line. This represents a deceased individual trying to save an alive individual from ending his own life. This idea was based on stories where some people get consciousness out of nowhere from being stuck in a coma. I always felt like there must be some kind of spiritual motivation for them to wake up from a coma.
Last but not least, the shadows in front of them represent bereaved families that are granted more time to live on earth. They are just endlessly looking at their lost loved ones since they know that they will no longer be able to feel their physical presence. This composition was inspired by the image of people standing at the funeral services.
Inspiration
A few months ago, one of my friends, who runs a marathon once in a while, told me that the most exciting part of running a marathon for him is seeing people running at their own pace whether they go faster or slower. He told me that it helped him to acknowledge the fact that it is okay to get behind sometimes as long as he reaches the point that he initially aimed for, not necessarily the point that other people expect him to reach. He also mentioned that the part of a marathon that he dislikes the most is ironically when he reaches the finish line, it was because crossing the finish line often makes him feel way too completed in his life that he needs to find something big to occupy his empty mind again,
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