Memento Mori

A lot of the core tenets of Stoicism resonate strongly with my view of the world. I find the idea of Memento Mori, or “Remember that you will die” a very powerful tool when faced with a decision or a fork in the road. Everything shall pass, and we can lose it all in a moment. Rather than it being a morbid thing, it’s just a very effective way to keep a level head, without succumbing to whatever idea of grandeur or “success”, while at the same time spurring action. We’re all naked and we’re all gonna die, so why fret or delay?

I made these as a practice project while at the same time honouring three of the most important Stoic philosophers: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. In each one of the portraits, I superimposed a red skull as a reminder of how mortality is always there, and how we are all just human, trying to understand and navigate our time on Earth. Or maybe I just thought they looked cool that way. :)