“MEMENTO VIVERE (Remember to Live)”

“MEMENTO VIVERE (Remember to Live)”
60” x 48” oil on canvas
2021 Brooks Anderson
This painting is all about the juxtaposition of life, death, and separation. When I painted this piece in the midst of Covid-19, death and loss had been in a constant duet with life and survival. The foreground represents a sort of stage. The dead tree stump, situated almost squarely in the center of the foreground, represents the death someone has experienced of someone else close to them. The serpentine, thriving tree represents all of that which remains, still growing and existing. The light of a rising sun from the side not only gives warmth, but brings compositional symmetry and rhythm — a reminder of care and continuation. New growth in the foreground area is being bathed by this light. It is in the background of the sea and sky that we have a juxtaposition of this earthly, rooted stage with immense, infinite light and life. It is a remembrance to live, which this painting elicits. It is in the reconciling our fears and ignorance with one-another that we can find common ground.