THE LOWBROW TAROT PROJECT

13: Death

The horror of my idea for the Death Card was the skeletal horse. Drawing a man's bones is hard enough, but a horse's? Then there was the landscape filled with bodies... well, that was easy/peasy compared to the horse. In the traditional interpretation of the card, Death doesn't only mean The End ... it can also mean getting rid of the old in order to make way for a new beginning. That is why I put the flowers reaching up and out between the barren bones in the earth. There is a rising sun in the background. The headstones are turning into a city as they move towards the horizon and the dawn: death and night turning into the hustle and bustle of life and light. The scythe is glowing like the sun and is animated by its rays: life to death again. Round and round and round we go.....

Laurie Lipton was born in New York and began drawing at the age of four. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA.