"Asphodel"

Completed: March 2004

Asphodel is the name of the pale white flower that the zombie-girl of the same name is holding.. It is the classical Greek flower that symbolizes Death.. I felt that the juxtaposition of the flower and and the decaying girl poetically expressed the ephemerality of beauty and life.. A stoic sephulchre looms over the scene, holding its immortality in conceit...

In the background are cypress trees which, along with the asphodel, are symbols of Death and mourning that are often planted near graves.. It is a part of the Orphic Mysteries that when you die, you either drink from the Lethe or Mnemosyne rivers in Hades.. Lethe brings forgetfulness and erases the memories of your life in order to allow you to pass into the next.. Mnemosyne brings remembrance and allows you to retain your memories.. This River of Memory is marked by silver cypresses...

But the ones here are black.

(Note: At the moment, no print will be made available of this painting. The sole print of this was presented as a gift to Ben Moody, the co-founder and ex-lead guitarist of Evanescence.. because he loves zombies, and is a great guy.)