Ghosts

A close friend died.  

The treatments for leukemia had turned his body against itself. 

He was not even forty when he passed.

I became obsessed by death.  Or rather, what happens after death.

Imminent death experiences, past lives, mediums, the spirit world.  That led me to all those ghost investigation shows.  One in particular stood out:  Ghost Mine.  I watched the episodes over and over again. 

I was hooked for so many reasons.  Of course the subject: what is haunting the Crescent Mine?  But then, you have the mining culture, with its storytelling of legends and superstitions. I was also interrested in the relationships between the men themselves, having to be macho but caring for each other at the same time, being brave and staying safe.  The Band of brothers type of thing. 

And the Oregon mountains.

I must emphasize how stunning the photography of the series is.

They use night vision cameras during the investigations.  Glowing whites and really stark shadows.  The familiar looks slightly off. 

I wanted to recreate that quality of light.  To do so, I drew with charcoal on mylar paper using tv stills as a reference.  The transparency of the mylar created a moody hazy light.  The light had to be created by the absence.

I like being in that state of attraction paralled by terror, the primal childish fear of the unseen, the dark, the possibility of dying and disappearing.