maria.musiyaka@gmail.com

The idea for this painting came to me a few months after my father passed away in 2019. From my perspective, it felt as though the ground had literally been pulled out from under me because he was my foundation in so many ways. At the same time, I looked around and saw that life kept continuing regardless. I’m sure this dissonance is something everyone experiences when they lose a loved one.
In the painting, the skull symbolizes my father’s death. I hold it in my right hand because the right side of the body represents the father and the connection to him. Some mosaic pieces on my right hand are missing, symbolizing the parts of myself that I lost when he was gone.
With my left hand, I reach for an hourglass that is nearly empty, intending to turn it over and restart the flow of time. In the painting, the hourglass represents life.
the idea was not to capture a single moment but rather movement - an intention - because I had come to understand and accept the situation. It also conveys that life and death are part of the same process, coexisting in the same moment as two halves of a whole.