Mize Gallery presents: AFTERLIFE

MIZE GALLERY
689 DR MLK JR ST N, Suite C
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
 

GALLERY HOURS:
Saturdays 10AM-5PM
Sundays 10AM-2PM
Masks required.
Limit to 6 people in gallery at once.

Exhibit on view March 5th - 28th, 2021.

Contact info@chadmize.com 727.251.8529 for purchase.

TRANSITION
Acute Perception
Digital Photograph
16" x 24"

Death has been a curiosity of mine from a rather young age. I was not instilled with an infrastructure around the concept, so I have no solid conclusions about it. Instead, I’ve developed rather abstract interpretations based on my own thoughts and observations. Transition is a scientific and naturalistic representation of the afterlife.

LEAP OF FAITH
Anna Sauer
Oil on Linen
31" x 25"

The process of painting is not dissimilar from the process of moving through life. What started as a sloppy pool of colors without cohesion, over time became a stage set for forms to emerge and move out into the darkness of unknown space. To look at the evening sky filled with stars is enough sometimes, a general upward movement and ability to pay attention being the only purpose here.

When things rise, I begin to see the underlying geometry and order hidden inside.

Through the analysis of the afterlife idea (taking Leap of Faith, if you will...) I've found one absolute: Beauty is everlasting. This painting is a record of that journey.

JUUL ME TO THE MOON
Alle Wilkie
Digital on Canvas
24" x 24"

My take on Van Gogh’s “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette”, updated to include a Chanel Juul and a music fest-esq feathery, bejeweled cowgirl hat.

A play on the cliche- here for a good time, not a long time.

Also suggestive of the deadly and irreversible consequences of vaping e-cigs.

Pop culture and high trend, inspired.

SEANCE
Calan Ree
Ceramic
8.5" x 4.5" & 3" x 2.5"

This piece explores the topic of spirit communication, particularly through seance. The planchette references spirit boards (like ouija) and simple clear communication such as hello or goodbye, while the spirit figure itself is covered in asemic writing - an artform that is free to interpretation as it is writing for the sake of writing and not specific verbal communication.

In my opinion this artform is similar to 'automatic writing' which is done by a medium in an attempt to channel a spirit through use of pen to paper. The medium loosely holds pen to paper, closes eyes and attempts to allow the spirit to move the hand and form words. They might start by loosely moving the pen in swoops across the paper, or by hovering the pen above the paper and moving it in a circular fashion rapidly until the pen eventually makes contact and words are formed. The result could be a page of scribbles with a few words or entire paragraphs.

I used this idea of communicating with spirit...which i interpret as higher self to carve the asemic writing into the figure. It is the first time I've explored this artform and found it really interesting. Using a carving tool in clay prevented me from over thinking or judging whether or not the writing was "coming out good or bad" as there is no eraser on the end of a razor. This allowed me to let the writing flow.

This was more of an art practice than an attempt to commune with spirits, yet I do think a connection to my own spirit and creative energy was achieved. It is similar to what one might experience through meditation or when in a 'flow state'.

THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
Johannah O’Donnell
Acrylic on Board

I chose Carrie Fisher for my Afterlife piece because her death hit me really hard. For so many Gen Xers, Princess Leia was one of our first role models. Losing Fisher at the end of 2016, the year we lost so many of our heroes, was the icing on the terrible year cake. The idea of the “Force Ghost”, that the Jedis live on after death, is a really hopeful one, and I wanted to capture that feeling of hope in my painting.  

JACOB’S LADDER (AFTER WILLIAM BLAKE)
Katie Niewodowski
Acrylic and Rhinestones on Panel
24" x 18"

This painting took its inspiration from William Blake’s drawing which itself is inspired by the biblical story of Jacob. In this story, Jacob has a dream in which God shows him a ladder covered with angels that connects earth to heaven. When he awoke, he felt as if God had opened a portal that allowed him to find heaven on earth.

None of us know for sure what will happen to us after we die. Because of this, I feel it’s our responsibility to make the most of our lives and create heaven on earth while embracing the angels that are all around us.

MAB’S GARDEN: RETURN TO THE EARTH
Perry deVick
Oil on Panel
12" x 24"

My piece is inspired by the cycles of life, death, decay, and new growth. I do not claim to know what happens to consciousness after death, but I do know that our matter and energy do not just disappear, but become a feature of the earth, one way or another. Is it better to be preserved for a time by chemicals and boxes or to be allowed to feed the growth of life and be reborn anew?

BATH TIME / LIVING ROOM / ANNE
Rebekah Lazaridis
Acrylic on Board
Bath Time: 12" x 15" / Living Room: 17" x 14" / Anne: 12" x 15"

I've long been examining my way through the idea of an afterlife having previously exhibited a large scale art show The Unseen back in 2018. My husband and I recently moved to a beautiful old bungalow in a historic neighborhood. We discovered that we were merely guests in the house as it was already inhabited by many spirits, some of which weren't inviting. I wonder why some people "cross over" after death and why others remain here. In my bathroom.

LOUIS
Matthew Giordano
Ink, Pen and Paint on Panel
24” x 12"

Death comes for us all; either a sudden moment, a shock, or a slow, gradual process. When one departs, what happens to the soul? The viewer decides if the soul is emerging into light, representing the idea of eternal life or is it dissolving into darkness, representing the idea of nothingness, the end. Death, and the idea of the afterlife, is a profoundly personal experience. For some, a goal, an outward expression that may shape ones life in ways unknow, or is it merely a fleeting thought of no worldly concern?

WE ARE ALREADY DEAD: ME AND MY KA, AND HIS KA, ME
Adam Graham
Acrylic and Pencil on Paper (Framed)
36” x 24”

In the mythology of ancient Egypt, the Ka (kah) was considered a person’s “double,” the replica of a person who would, upon death, dwell in the Other World.

In this painting, the idea of the Ka is extended: the Ka is our double in the Other World, but from the Ka’s perspective we are its double, and our world is its Other World. In this way, we are both our death-selves and our living-selves; death is life, and life is death.

PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT
Reid Jenkins
Acrylic on Canvas
30" x 15"

Reincarnation is the living of multiple lives, with the aim to reach total enlightenment. This piece is a representation of the path to enlightenment. The closed flower in the bottom left represents the beginning being closed off to knowledge and wisdom. The open flower represents the Acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, while being bond to the world. The color shapes represents past lives we go through. The child is a representation of the current life. How at this point we have the possibility of reaching enlightenment.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN AFTERLIFE
Chad Mize
Spraypaint and Acrylic on Wood
12” x 24”

When brainstorming ideas for the Afterlife exhibit, I kept thinking about my childhood Choose Your Own Adventure books. We all have different stories and paths in life that will lead us to some sort of afterlife. No one’s story is the right or wrong way, as it’s the unknown. Surprise me.

PULSE
Frank Strunk III
Installation / Mixed Media
48" x 48"

Pulse: A single vibration or short burst of sound, electric current, light, or other wave.

The body, the brain, course with electricity. Synapses fire 10 to the 16th power every second. The first law of thermodynamics, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another.

When we shuffle off our mortal coil, the energy that traveled through us, powered us, actually "was us" takes another form in part or in whole and rejoins the source of all energy. The universe.

That energy connects with us, "visits" us in the form of memories or pulses. When a memory comes to you seemingly "out of nowhere" that energy, that memory, that person is visiting you... contacting you.

Feel it.
Sit with it.
Honor it.
Hey y'all, miss you.

REBOOT
Van Der luc
Mixed Media
21" x 21"

“...Once extinct, nature will embrace his remains to transform and recycle his lost life to bringing him back into a new renewed form...”. 

FLOAT
Andrea Pawlisz
Acrylic on Canvas
45" x 15"

we should meet in another life
we should meet in the air.
sylvia plath

UNFORGETTING
Kenny Jensen
Oil on Panel
22" x 32"

Late last Friday, as this painting neared completion, my grandmother Fern Jensen peacefully breathed her last breaths. Earlier that day the family gathered around to softly sing some of her favorite old hymns “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder” and “This World Is Not My Home”. These songs are lovely in a certain way and have seemed to be a comfort to Fern throughout her life, but the tradition which she, and later I, grew up in and that birthed these hymns is almost entirely focused (in my view to a pathological extreme) on very narrow assumptions about what happens after death. This is to me almost entirely missing the point. An adventure with a predetermined conclusion only - the actual journey and essence of being alive all but forgotten aside from a list of (in comparison) trivial do’s and don’ts 

This oil painting is a translation of a photograph I shot through an inadequate lens. It captures a handful of soil and decomposing leaves tossed in the air directly in front of the distorting lens, blown out by the late afternoon sun pouring through the trees of my grandparent's land. This land in rural Gulf Hammock Fl and the time I have spent there with them throughout my life is one of the main factors in making me the kind of person and artist that I am and strive to be. The true and lasting legacy I am grateful to have received from “Mama”/ Fern is not the rote ideas she felt obligated to repeat, but her actual connection to life and nature vividly communicated through her tens of thousands of beautiful photographs, love for and nurturing of flowers and plants, humor, enthusiastic gospel piano playing and her tireless care for me and her entire huge family.

Post deconstruction of the foundational evangelical status quo I was given by my tribe, I find myself drawn more and more to the mystics and wisdom teachers like Richard Rohr, and lately Echart Tolle, Alan Watts and Ram Dass. Through their influence and many transcendent experiences in nature I am becoming more aware of how deeply and mysteriously everyone and everything is connected. I am slowly learning to see with a more holistic, inclusive and expansive lens. Remembering that we and everything around us is made up literally of the same materials and energy that was present at the big bang. I am no longer so concerned with impossible questions of what happens after death, or how to die in peace but rather how to live in peace - as the sacred text that I still greatly value says “have life, and have it more abundantly”.

Rather than “from dust to dust…” I prefer to say from soil to new life, from soil to…