Why I Let Death Into My Painting

People often ask me — why death? Why choose something so heavy, so final, as a subject for a painting?

My honest answer is: I didn't choose it. It chose me.

There was a period in my life where I was carrying a lot. Stress, anxiety, the weight of things I couldn't quite name. I was painting during that time — not to escape, but to understand. And somewhere in the middle of that process, a question came to me that I couldn't shake: what is it that waits at the end of all this chaos?

That question became Portrait of Death.

Life is louder than we admit

The background of the painting is a gradient — bright yellow bleeding into deep red. Birth to end. That arc is life. And I wanted to paint it loudly, because life is loud. It strips us down. It reduces us to instinct. We rush through days without stopping to feel what we are actually carrying.

The pillars in the painting hold that tension. On the left, all the creepers climb upward — except one, falling. That's us in our darkest moments, still holding on to something good. On the right, the creepers fall — except one, reaching up. That's us in our best moments, still carrying some flaw, some shadow. We are never entirely one thing. That is the balance of being human.

Death as I actually see it

Here is what most people get wrong about this painting: they expect death to be dark. A skull. A shadow. Something to fear.

In my painting, death holds a flower.

Not because I believe death is easy. But because I believe there is grace in it. The soul is cradled — held like something fragile and precious — not dragged away. The flowers arranged throughout the piece are not decorative. They mark a stillness. The quiet of an evening just before nightfall. A pause between one state and another.

The crow sits at the top — a spiritual witness. In many traditions, the crow is the guide between worlds. I placed it there not to frighten, but to watch over. To oversee the transition without judgment.

Death in this painting is not an ending. It is a gentle passage — the most honest moment of care that existence offers us.

Why I needed to paint this

When I was in that heavy period — carrying things I couldn't name — I think what scared me most was not death itself. It was the chaos of being alive without understanding why. Portrait of Death was my way of answering that fear.

If the end is gentle — if something waits there with flowers and not with fury — then perhaps the chaos of the middle is worth sitting with. Perhaps the stress and the anxiety and the noise of living is not a sign that something is wrong. Perhaps it is simply the sound of being fully, honestly alive.

That is what I wanted viewers to feel. Not dread. Not comfort either — real comfort is too easy. I wanted something in between. A reckoning. A quiet moment of recognition.

You have felt that chaos. You know that weight. And somewhere, at the end of all of it, something is waiting — holding a flower.

That is why I let death into my painting.

— Harvinder Singh Hunjan (Abstract Harry)