"I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

The argument exists that all art is political because, however abstract, the art and the artists inevitably exhibit and comment on the values of the given culture or historical setting from which they emanate. I am interested in political art, that is to say, an art of ambiguity.

This work was created in a vein of the vanitas theme, an allegorical genre of work that depicts the impermanence of life, the futility of pleasure, and the inevitability of death, frequently juxtaposing images of prosperity with emblems of ephemerality. While each object presented in this work is imbued with these allegorical implications, some have rather specific historical context such as the now infamous Plague Doctor. First appearing during the 17th-century bubonic plague, these physicians were initially employed by cities to treat infected patients regardless of income, especially the most impoverished, though many were not experienced and could do little more than document deaths and infection rates. Gradually, their appearance became synonymous with death itself and the potential evacuation, or desolation, of large areas, thus ironically garnering these physicians a reputation as personifications of death itself.

Within this work, I aimed to create a piece that isn’t merely sensational, nor falsely iconic. Concerning the direct symbolism of the piece, I give no definitive answer. Allegorical gestures, epiphanies and symbols remain opaque and contingent on the viewer’s interpretation, since an artist should not pretend to know where the truth lies.