Skulls, Fruit, and Flowers

've finished up my Caravaggio series, and haven't been quite ready to move on to the next big series. I've been taking a little play and exploration time in my studio, playing with some 3d pieces and still life. I've been thinking a lot about Baroque Vanitas paintings- still life musings on mortality, with skulls and bugs and decay mixed in with beautiful flower arrangements and other perishables.

So far, I've have three groups of separate but related works coming out of these musings: deer skulls embellished with glittery patterns, craft-store apples dressed up in trompe-l'oeil, and still life paintings of decaying floral arrangements.

Here's a selection:

And here's a few examples of Vanitas paintings to give you a

sense of where I'm coming from: