Memento Mori

My fascination with the depiction of bones in art, together with my travels, mainly in Spain, Italy and the UK, has inspired this series of art prints. They remind us of Memento Mori, a Latin phrase meaning “remember that you are mortal”.

From inscriptions on ancient tombs to sundials and medieval floor tiles, each print begins with an encounter from my travels, which I reinterpret through my own drawings, patterns and colour.

In Seville, I came across a Latin maxim accompanied by a skull carved in marble on a tombstone laid on the floor of the ancient church belonging to the Convento de San José del Carmen.

Si vis bene mori disce bene vivere

“If you wish to die well, learn to live well.”

Reflecting the philosophy of ars moriendi, the art of dying, these words link the way we face death to the way we choose to live. Inspired by its Sevillian origins, I created a shroud of bougainvillea flowers, bringing colour and life to this meditation on mortality.

Another print explores the Latin phrase traditionally associated with Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London:

Totus mundus agit histrionem

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

A reflection on human nature and appearances, it reminds us of the roles we play, the masks we wear and our fleeting time on life’s stage.

The third print takes me to Houghton Hall in Norfolk, where a historic sundial bears the motto Vita in motu, meaning “life is in motion”. Its border is inspired by Bawsey tiles, medieval floor tiles decorated with animals, mythical creatures, heraldic emblems, flowers and intricate geometric patterns.

At Norwich Museum, I discovered a wonderful display of these tiles alongside the remains of an ancient skeleton. My first attempt was to depict him, but he gave me such a fright that I decided instead to draw a monumental brass depicting Thomas Childe, dating from 1452 and found in Kent.