AUGUST 2026: SADIE ARNOLD
ARTIST STATEMENT
I would like death and grief to feel as accessible to others as it does to me. There are two sides to dying, the social and ideological framework, and the natural side of decomposition and the function it serves in our environment. These two sides of death have deeply interested me for a long time. This fascination has led me to think about my own physical self and what will happen when I die.
During early exploration of my own mortality, I discovered Caitlin Doughty, an American mortician and advocate for death acceptance and funeral industry reform. Her work often explores the sterile and veiled concept of death in western society, and the influence it has on our culture. These concepts, along with my disillusionment with the American funeral industry, were crucial to my artistic development.
Many modern and western societies operate through death care conventions that come from unscientific beliefs that the dead, and their bodies, are inherently dangerous. Western embalming can be directly linked to American Civil War practices that created an ever present embalming market today. By separating the family from their role in preparing the dead, funeral homes and embalming services turned intimate and complex moments of grief into profit centers, now referred to as the funeral industrial complex.
Within the modern context, legislation has been constructed around many of the ideas that came from this early era of American embalming, as well as deep rooted religious institutions. Families are often pushed to make certain decisions regarding caring for their loved ones out of legal obligation, rather than informed care and personal preference. In some cases, complying with conventional practices leads to funerary debt that loved ones take on in addition to grieving their loss.
These works are a way of mourning. Not my inevitable death, but the loss of my opportunity to be connected to a cycle that’s continued life for billions of years. Most end of life decisions are governed by an industry that has pushed against freedom of choice in how and where our bodies are cared for. This industry often disregards social connection, cultural significance, and natural processes for the sake of profit or control. By separating the family grief process in favor of concrete burial vaults and 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde per year, the ecological process of returning to the earth is bypassed and damaged.
My body of work seeks to bring joy and clarity to the acceptance of death as a natural process. My ultimate goal is to make the concept of dying more digestible to those that feel unable to confront their own mortality, and to illustrate the beauty in the repetitive dependable nature of dying. Death is a soft comfort and constant in my life, and I wanted to explore these visceral concepts in my work.
I often focus on exposing these ideas through structures beneath the flesh. I wanted to create a more theoretical series of prints that have similar imagery across both mediums, such as birds and human figures. I felt drawn to these motifs because of their strong spiritual connotations, as well as a representation of separation of soul and flesh. In addition to these connotations, I first observed long term decomposition through a magpie, which felt significant to my personal experience with mortality.
Through repeated elements in my monotype prints, I expanded upon the cyclical nature of death by reusing elements across works to represent textures, smells, and colors of decomposition. With these images, I’m able to explore the vast emotions surrounding death and dying. These concepts should be accessible to everyone, as I believe understanding one’s own mortality leads to better death care outcomes for all of us.
For purchase inquiries, please email the Gallery Manager:
Lily Kip
lily@zootownarts.org
Interested in a show in the Blackfoot Communications Gallery?
