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| Isaac McCaslin, Spectacularly Dying, oil on canvas, 60 in. x 50 in. 2014 |
The
inspiration for Spectacularly
Dying began with an elaborate burial ceremony organized
by my young nieces and nephew for an accidentally killed lizard encountered on
a camping trip at the Rio Grand Reservoir in New Mexico. 4 months later I
painted this work. In the painting, a snake eating a rodent is a spectacle
of death for the kids, thus sparking an impetus of empathic awareness. The
rodent is in the midst of a death squeeze at the moment of acceptance, within
the cycle of dying. This ‘Dying Acceptance’, is where the feeling of
freedom shifts from ‘being free to choose’ to ‘being free of choice’. If
I feel anxiety in facing chaos and/or order, a balance between choice and
acceptance should be achieved so that I can feel
freedom. ‘self-sustainment at all costs’ should yield
to ‘passing the torch in preparation for death’. The mythological
Chronus eating his child echoes the snake eating the rodent. Here, Chronus is a
Tyrant, an extreme manifestation of the desire to keep power and order by
consuming his child. As grotesque as it is, this spectacle gives credence
to the notion that time creates and destroys. Order will unravel into chaos and
chaos will coagulate into new regimes of order.
Videographer: Brittney Lohmiller
