Modern Allegories - Works-in-Progress

A series of work-in-progress allegories responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The scenes consist of objet trouvé (a child's ball, a roll of toilet paper in a gold wrapper), posed as objects of value and threat.

The ball is reminiscent of the corona virus in structure. The golden toilet paper represents the extreme value placed upon this domestic product at the commencement of the pandemic.
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Embedded memento mori reference Hans Holbein the Younger's "The Ambassadors' (1533).

"Death `himself' is the main actor in the countless variants of the memento mori imagery which survive: he scythes through the ranks of the proud, creeps up on the unwary with his bow and plague arrow, and frightens all and sundry. His lack of respect for social degree and his indiscriminate behaviour were especially terrifying. He grins, allows near escapes, but always conquers. His expressionless features deny the powerful inherent semiotic quality of the human face, and signify a separate kind of existence, `the other' to the living human." (Llewellyn,1991:26)*

This work extends ideas explored in my earlier works about representations of disease and the fear of death, in The Horla and Liminal.

​The works are available signed large-scale fine art glicée prints and through Red Bubble.
Picture
Allegory IX - Holbein edition (COVID-19 Series). © Peter Morse (2020). Digital Photograph & Conceptual Art (Object trouvé, Paper, Plastic, Velvet).
*Llewellyn, Nigel. (1991), The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual c.1500- c.1800. (Reaktion Books, London).