Having created many life examples from fractals, both of actual living specimens and emotions, when I first saw the flame fractal used as the basis of this painting, I knew  I had found the mathematical form of death. The forms suggested not only the shape of the skull and skeleton, but the radial fractal rays and tearing of the image to me depicted the process of the disintegration of the body, reducing it to its elements. It is this reduction that has left death in contemplation (and the capture of a Deaths-head Moth). The disintegration of the body into its simplest elemental form, in my mind is a the gradual process of integration of those elements, which were you, into the greater world around us. This integration and mixing looks very much like the undulations found in marbleized papers, where the mixing of colors (or elements) form the striking imagery of synthesis.

In this painting, death is contemplating the moth that has landed and is thinking of the origins of life and the universe.

This line of thought is as follows.

It is widely known but rarely thought about that all elemental matter was formed only once. This occurred some 14 billion years ago if scientists are right about the big bang theory. There is growing acceptance based on quantum theory that there was no big bang at all. The universe  is as it was. The Big Bang Theory gives a starting point to the age of the universe (and all matter) based on the expansion of galaxies and data taken to estimate the age of stars and galaxies. We will use that as our starting point, and wait for more quantum evidence to prove the universe is older. To get to the point, what this means is, every atom and particle found in your body is the same age, or approximately 13.82 billion years old. Since evidence shows the earth to be just 4.5 billion years old, it is a simple fact that for at least 9 billion years everything in your body, all that makes what you physically are, was part of space, birthing stars, galaxies and nebulae. This is not science fiction, this is absolute fact. 

Since our bodies are comprised of between 57 to 65% water, it is safe to say that that water has at one time been an ocean, a river and a cloud. Not to mention the comet or meteorite you were before falling to earth. At one time dinosaurs, fish and everything marine, has swum through what has become you. In fact it is likely you were also part of the very same fish, dinosaurs, or numerous other evolutionary insects, animals or unknown species that have lived on this earth, whose carcasses have, like death's in my painting, disintegrated into the earth and become part of the amalgamation which will in time relocate and become part of yet another plant, animal or being. This is the synthesized theory of reincarnation, which bases reincarnation on absolute fact and scientific knowledge, as opposed to a religious hope.

This simple fact begs deeper questions. One fundamental question would be do elements have the ability to somehow retain memory? (Do not dismiss this so easily, as it may explain many human feelings and emotions, such as an affinity to the ocean, forests, or even dogs)

Death is contemplating all these things, while disintegration makes them a reality.

I'll take this opportunity to relate to the reader the practice of some who bury their dead, and then plant a fruit bearing tree above the grave. They are not only simply providing an object to remember that person by, but are providing a means for others, through the nutrition of the tree and the decomposed carcass, to actually become a small portion of the deceased. 

I believe this was the unconscious meaning of the fractal roots of an iris, growing from the mind of the female in my painting "Only Thought can Rival Nature"

So it is true, you are what you eat, but what that substance may have been over the past 13.82 billion years, is the real mystery, and perhaps shapes you more than we realize.