Memento Mori

Humans have been fascinated by and terrified of death since the beginning of time. It is the one experience we share regardless of culture, age, or environment. Cultures around the world use art to process loss, reflect on our humanity, and explore the mysteries of death. As one of the oldest themes in art history, death has been personified, abstracted, deified, vilified, and used to critique our own hubris or excessive pride.

Memento mori is a Latin phrase which translates to “remember you must die.” At first glance, it may seem morbid, but its intent is to remind us of our mortality and offer a humbling warning. Dutch artists in the seventeenth century took the concept further and created a visual language of skulls, candles, hourglasses, and clocks in portraits and still lifes to encourage a viewer’s reflection on the brevity of human life. This symbolism softly encourages viewers to confront their mortality regularly and with courage. Death then becomes a friend met at the end of the road rather than a source of fear.

The works in this exhibition explore how memento mori and its related themes continued beyond the seventeenth century, reflecting humanity’s complex relationship with death, destruction, and the afterlife. Rather than a macabre survey on the history of death, this exhibition invites viewers to meditate on a shared human experience through traditional still lifes, portraiture, surreal expressions, and landscapes.