TWO artists have combined their skills to create an exhibition exploring beauty in death.<\/p>\n
Lauren Starr and Sarah Wallace-Smith\u2019s Memento Mori <\/em>invites attendees to question their own perceptions about death at the free Dudley House display, on show until 1 June.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year during COVID I was doing a lot of research into art history and came across Dutch still life paintings and the sentiment of memento mori<\/em> which means \u2018remember you\u2019ll die\u2019, and I loved it so much that I started to photograph some still lifes,\u201d Starr said.<\/p>\n \u201cI said to Sarah would she also like to do the exhibition with me because I love her work and we\u2019re both artists in residence at Valentine\u2019s in View Street, and she loved the idea too and I think our work compliments each other really well.<\/p>\n \u201cRemember you die is not supposed to promote fear or be morbid, it\u2019s supposed to be a moto to live with life at the forefront and prioritise life by remembering that its short.\u201d<\/p>\n After being successful in their application for a City of Greater Bendigo subsidy grant to exhibit at the venue, Starr combined her fine art pieces, which are a contemporary reimagining of popular 17th and 18th century Dutch still lifes, with Wallace-Smith\u2019s mixed medium pieces.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been interesting to see that there\u2019s actually been quite a lot of art exhibitions opening where a lot of the themes revolve around or they\u2019re investigating death, life, and \u2018why are we here?\u2019 and \u2018what\u2019s important?\u2019,\u201d Wallace-Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think because of the year we\u2019ve just had, a lot of people have really had a moment to consider how they\u2019re living their life and what\u2019s important and what\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n