Danse Macabre. Mixed techniques on a black canvas 78 x 52 cm by Shaharee Vyaas (2023)

Danse Macabre is the first installation of a series of five #paintings I’ve made around a time that coincides with the yearly festival of #Halloween 2023. The frames contain some earlier reflections I had about the aftermath of the recent #pandemic. The stylistic style deviates substantially from most of my other works, although parallels can be drawn with the works that feature in my series Art in the Dark.
#COVID-19, with all the variants of the virus that causes it, has unquestionably affected people across the globe. The disease itself or the stress, uncertainty, and fear it has created touched most people in one way or another.
The cultural impact of mass outbreaks of disease are not fleeting or temporary. The effect can endure past the initial stages of outbreak, in its deep etching upon the culture and society. This can be seen in the medieval artworks and motifs of Danse Macabre that followed the outbreak of the plague, when people attempted to cope with the #death surrounding them.
Nothing is completely irreversible. We’re going to be okay — everyone is able to be well and to do well — but we need to give ourselves space and time to get there. It will take time to reacquaint with a new reality. What we saw during the pandemic was a need to return to the way things were, ‘back to normal,’ but we don’t need to go back. Human #evolution prompts us to move forward, not backward.