With long hair and a lack of tattoos, this self-portrait harks back to the way I looked in 2017 while on my work study in Greece. The scene itself is the hallway of the Lakonia Hotel, where I spent the night after learning of my friend Steve’s death. The setting is painted from what I can remember from the night, where the dark red carpet and fluorescent lighting added to the uncomfortable feeling.

Like the 2018 version of “Requiem”, the sunflowers ripping out of my chest show the painful growth we experience in grief. In the underpainting of the panel, Stevenson’s poem by the same name is visible in the painted-over letters.