Memento Mori: Beauty, Impermanence, and What Endures

A tulip swirls and curls as it withers and dies.

As I slowly recover from a year of what Katherine May so perfectly calls “wintering” — following the deaths of my deeply loved parents in quick succession at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 — I found myself returning to my Memento Mori series. These images were first created after the deaths of my in-laws, also greatly loved, and also lost within a short space of time. Grief, it seems, has a way of circling back, asking to be met again from a new place.

During that earlier period, our house was full of flowers: funeral arrangements, bouquets from kind friends, and armfuls gathered from the garden. I’ve always loved having flowers in the house — a small, daily ritual of beauty. I keep a collection of tiny vases that move around the centre of our dining table throughout the year, each holding a single stem or two. It’s a quiet family tradition I borrowed from my mother-in-law, and one that now feels threaded through memory.

As the flowers passed their best, I became captivated by the shapes and patterns they formed as they withered. There was something deeply resonant in their slow transformation — it mirrored what we were feeling: loss, sadness, tenderness, and yet a profound sense of beauty too. These were lives that had been well lived, and deeply loved.

Iris flowers create a textural wonderland in mauves, creams and golds.

Not all flowers fade with the same quiet grace, but tulips and iris surprised me. They held their colour, their petals curling and twisting like ballet dancers around their stamens. Photographed against a black background in my indoor studio, the series gradually took shape — first as portraits of individual flowers, and later as studies of many petals together, forming richly textured, almost luminous compositions.

As a mindfulness teacher too, I often reflect on impermanence — the truth that everything living must eventually die, that nothing lasts forever. One of my personal mantras is “all times pass.” Through my current Buddhist studies, I’ve learned this concept is known as anicca, the first of the Three Marks of Existence, alongside dukkha (suffering) and anatta (non-self).

Because of this, Memento Mori is far more than a visual exploration for me. The phrase itself — Latin for “remember you must die” — can sound bleak or unsettling, but that isn’t how I experience it. In Western culture, death is often approached with heaviness and restraint, though this is slowly changing. Funerals are still frequently sombre and brief, marked by dark clothing and quiet formality.

Elsewhere, remembrance looks different. In Mexico, the Day of the Dead fills streets with colour, food, music, and stories. In Ireland, wakes can last for days, blending grief with laughter, music, and shared memories. These traditions feel closer to how I understand loss — not an ending, but a continuation of connection.

Tulip petals with gold and rose tones twirl like ballerinas.

What we believe spiritually is deeply personal, often shaped by religion or lived experience. For me, life — that small, essential spark that makes us us — feels like a form of universal energy. Physics tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So, I don’t believe that spark is extinguished. Where it goes, or how it changes, I can’t say. But I don’t believe our loved ones simply disappear.

Seen through that lens, Memento Mori becomes less about remembering death, and more about asking: what comes next? These images hold both grief and reverence, decay and beauty, endings and continuation — all existing together, just as they do in life.

Further images from this series can be found in the portfolio section on this website.

If the work resonates with you, limited edition and standard prints are available through Saatchi Art here:https://www.saatchiart.com/en-gb/art-collection/Momento-Mori/2314285/905339/view