City of the Dead

The winged lion. The gondola. These two subjects obviously remind us of Venice. The faraway City, a theme by itself, is not Venice at all, however. The blue/violet darkness, the ubiquitous flames, torches, but also distant bonfires, ghostlights, burning souls. This City belongs to the dead. The deep water separating the old colonnade and the City, the two rowers and the third person in the boat. A dead soul on her way to the underworld All these details have a conceptual connection to Arnold Boecklin’s Die Toteninsel. There is no hope, no perspective. Just destiny.