Memento Mori

"The lovely and emotionally constrained portrait, Memento Mori, brings together many symbolic elements of decay and depletion, a recurring motif in Macri’s art, especially the process of organic rot fomenting new life. Ironically the portrait almost undercuts the import of its title. Reminding us of our human frailty, our mortality, the inevitability of our demise, the portrait is brimming with life. As usual there is the signature combination of the normal with the bizarre; in this instance, seed heads of autumnal flowers and fragments of sloughed off skin, or even pieces of a dead hive covering the skull out of which a tuft of grey hair is seen. From my imaginary position in the wings I am half-tempted to rush on to the stage of this performance and rip it off."
~ Kenneth Radu (Ghost in the Wings: Macri and Me)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I love it, that is all you need to know, that I love it! This is extraordinary to me. I could look at it forever. Would Shakespeare pen a play about you!"
~ Phillip Wilcher (Australian composer and pianist)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"You are amazing! One of my favorites! So many things are taking on more meaning under the present circumstances. As before, your work is top of that list. I must confess this is my favorite. Coming back on it after the passage of some time is like re-reading a favorite novel. Every time a great work of art like yours is re-entered, it is like the first time. In the re-experiencing I perceive changes in myself and my past memory of the work. I think it was T.S. Elliot who said that the past is always being changed by the present. As I've said. A classic is something that is always new."
~ Bob Boldt (American artist, writer, poet, film/video maker)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Becoming very tasty here, growing, budding, morphing from earth to soul and back again, looking from within and out at one time, ancient & fresh, rotting away into death, but alive and growing anew. Duplicity has it's place in art, mystery prompts the eye to see. Very fine. Is Shakespeare in the room?"
~ John Felice Ceprano (Ottawa rock sculptor, painter)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Reality or illusion? Is reality what Creates our mind, what we see around us? The colors around us? Is the sky really blue? Up is down and left is to the right? Is everything you serve, or all just our experience? Great performance art!"
~ Artica Arta Life

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"God of the burning fields. Very evocative piece of work. I am always wowed when I come across your work because it is an inroad into your mind. This makes me think of the harvest gods of various mythologies."
~ Jonas Cukierman (Film, Production Coordinator)



Memento Mori, 2014
Photography: Chromogenic C-print
56 x 60 cm
Overall: 67 x 71 x 4 cm