Artist's Statement

Tony Chirinos

Death is always reaching out to us in ways that are tangible. For more than twenty years, I have been making work with an underlining context of death and the vulnerability of life. Life circumstances has enabled me to see things that most people will never experience except through images. Experiencing Death is an ongoing project with an intention to create a visual narrative that produces a story of how our precious life is attached to memories and how cold and finite death is. 

The body is a marvelous architectural medical engineered entity that baffles and intrigues us all. Many people, like me, have asked similar questions about the body. Individuals from past centuries, like Hippocrates and da Vinci, gave us a clearer understanding of some difficult medical issues. In the distant future as medicine evolves, answers will be found to what are now impossible questions. More than ever, the world of medicine has become very visual, creating images that can last a lifetime in memory. 

The fetus position is a memory from the unconscious which replicates itself, as we get closer to death. Our blood that runs through the bodies can stop within seconds due to a trauma. Time; yes, the one that passes day by day, second by second can in fact be cruel to the psyche. My intention for this project is to bring to light the fact that the more time you have had the closer and more noticeable death exists. Death can either be the mystery described by religion or cold finite associated with the world of science and medicine. Religion has taught us that our souls ascend into heaven, but do we take our knowledge with us, and, if we cease to exist after death, why are memories of our existence left behind as photographs?/p>