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The Sacred Stones Collection
The Speaking Stones Collection
The MG Society
Inside the Artist
Inside the Advocate
Inside the Muses
MG Contact
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The Sacred Stones Collection
Based on the sculptures of the Père Lachaise Cemetery |
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Adieu / The Final Goodbye
Oil on Canvas – 72” x 96”
Price: $133,000 VIEW VIDEO HERE
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Cemeteries were forbidden within the overpopulated city limits of Paris in 1786, as burial grounds were seen to compromise public health, but a new demand for resting places accompanied the rising body count that resulted from the French Revolution. Under the orders of Napoleon the Père Lachaise Cemetery opened in 1804 under the name Cimetière de l’Est.
An empire divided like the chambers of the heart. Adieu depicts the emotional aftermath of death; the sour departure of a patriarchal order. The sovereign head is split unevenly while sobbing children are left in disarray, questioning their place beneath the eyes of their benefactor.
Both the right and left panels of Adieu took over three days each for the artist to sketch. Creation based on a mathematical process, a compass and angle ruler were used to evaluate the precision of the measurements. When examined up close both fingers and hand prints belonging to the artist are visible in the “atmosphere” of the underlying background. Produced in the artist’s signature “Skeletal System” the lines were groomed so meticulously that the bristles of the neglected brushes were worn down to the wooden handles.
“My process requires me to think of the dead that are harnessed to the earth, looking out at all who pass above their graves without an ability to communicate.” –KEARIENE MUIZZ
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
ADIEU WAS PAINTED TO THE FOLLOWING
LIFETIME BY MAXWELL (BEN WATT REMIX) CLICK TO HEAR | |
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Porte Au Paradis / The Door to Heaven
Oil on Canvas – 11” x 14”
Price: $7,500
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Renamed the Père Lachaise Cemetery in honor of the original land owner, Jesuit priest Père François de La Chaise who was the confessor to Louis XIV. Doors to this 109 acre necropolis opened in May 1804. Initially, the cemetery was created outside the confines of Paris. However, after being enlarged five times since opening, the city and cemetery eventually grew into one another.
This copper sculpture adorns the entry to a sepulcher. Porte Au Paradis represents the metaphorical entry into the afterlife.
Visitors are received at the door to heaven by a face that emerges from a cluster of pine cones. Standing at the foot of eternity the only action left is to knock at the door and enter.
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
PORTE AU PARADIS WAS PAINTED TO
DEMON DAYS BY THE GORILLAZ CLICK TO HEAR | |
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“I translate the unspoken messages of the dead through the symbolism of the ornaments that have been selected to stand in their place.”
–KEARIENE MUIZZ | |
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L'Offrande / The Offering
Oil on Canvas – 24” x 36”
Price: $43,500 VIEW VIDEO HERE
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Alexandre Brongniart was the architect behind the design of the cemetery as an informal place of reflection. With over 100,000 plots and sepulchers the first burial was said to have been of an unknown person, in contrast to the notorious reputation of those at rest today.
Like the abundant clusters of flowers, this angel is an offering, a guardian who is sent to intercede on behalf of the deceased to comfort and watch over those who mourn; as the highest wish of the departed would be to ease the pain of the living. The stemless blossoms represent the impending restoration of the mourner’s emotional life; a hollow that can not be pinpointed on the respective endpoints of a Gregorian or psychological timeline.
The artist conducted statistical research at cemeteries, surveying the colors and types of flowers left at graves to truthfully depict the assortment of hues for viewers of this collection.
“In sharing the dimensions of grief and the many forms of my solitude I believe those who once believed they were beyond comfort now feel accompanied.”
–KEARIENE MUIZZ
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
L'OFFRANDE WAS PAINTED TO
LIFETIME BY MOS DEF CLICK TO HEAR | | |
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Imprononçable / Unpronounced
Oil on Canvas – 5” x 7”
Price: $3,750
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The shrouded prayers of a middle-aged woman are transformed in the eyes of the artist as the prominent features on the face of the original effigy are softened, almost resembling a young adolescent girl. And thus, it is in the privacy of our deepest sorrow that we are transformed into children when going before our Maker, seeking to gather the syllables which will be sufficient enough to pronounce the summary of our needs.
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
IMPRONONÇABLE WAS PAINTED TO
FADE BY SOLU MUSIC Ft. KIMBLEE CLICK TO HEAR | | |
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Rapatrier / Sent Home
Oil on Canvas – 5” x 7”
Price: $3,750
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From this rare perspective the Savior is not viewed as an entity that is whole and separate from the cross; the electrically tinted Savior and the cross are, in fact, one in the same. Severed and worn the journey is completed, punctuated by the bright persimmon hue which represents the dawn of a new era.
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
RAPATRIER WAS PAINTED TO
WE NEVER CHANGE BY COLDPLAY CLICK TO HEAR | |
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Bienvenue / Welcome
Oil on Canvas – 15” x 45”
Price: $18,499
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During the battles of 1814 polytechnical students built walls around the cemetery to transform it into a fortress. It was against one such wall that 147 revolutionaries were shot in the final days of the Paris Commune, a brief and controversial political party. Paris fell under the municipal rule for five years after the “Bloody Week,” where an estimated 20,000 were executed.
A confetti-like reception is punctuated by the eruption of colors as this two-headed sculpture adorns the entry of a sepulcher. Bienvenue is a visual rendering of the passage made as the soul migrates from the confines of life and enters the splendor of the spirit world. A release that is no longer weighed down by flesh, the inner-self catapults through an unknown universe using a new variety of senses.
“My conversation with the poet took place in the summer before the war. A year later the war broke out and robbed the world of it's beauties. It destroyed not only the beauty of the countryside through which it passed and the works of art which it met on its path but it also shattered our pride in the achievements of our civilization, our admiration for many philosophers and artists, and our hopes of a final triumph over the differences between nations and races. It tarnished the lofty impartiality of our science, it revealed our instincts in all their nakedness and let loose the evil spirits within us all which we thought had been tamed forever by centuries of continuous education by the noblest minds. It made our country small again and made the rest of the world far remote. It robbed us of very much we had loved, and showed us how ephemeral were many things that we had regarded as changeless.”
-SIGMUND FREUD, On Transience
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
BIENVENUE WAS PAINTED TO
NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU BY SINEAD O’CONNOR
CLICK TO HEAR | | |
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Pétales D'Hier / Petals of Yesterday
Oil on Canvas – 24” x 30”
Price: $36,000 VIEW VIDEO HERE
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Located in the 20th arrondissement the PèreLachaiseCemetery was established by Nicholas Frochet. Frochet successfully convinced the political forces of his time to permit the transfer of the legendary remains of French icons to the memorial park, establishing a trend that exists to this day. The bodies of playwright Molière and poet La Fontaine were transported to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, accompanied by the notoriously persecuted lovers Abelard and Héloise –the historic couple who maintained a connection after enduring physical castration, the seizure of their illegitimate baby and years of estrangement.
In Pétales D'Hier a single “stone” rose is fixed in the gaze of a woman as symbolic petals surround her. Each deliberate stroke made by the palate knife represents an emblematic petal of frozen memories. The work of mourning involves a consuming evaluation and intrusive replay of lost moments and beliefs once held in the world. Those aggrieved often can not break away from the hypnotic lure of the past, departing from the once inviting world.
Anhedonia is the inability to derive joy and pleasure from events in life. This condition accompanied agoraphobic artist for several years as she recovered from the vast traumas that turned the once colorful world to parched shades of gray, ironically, this period also marks the artist’s search for something that represented her condition as she began to focus on gray statues, interpreting their “hidden” life, transforming them from the deathly semblance of gray to a vibrant existence; experiencing one out of four of Sigmund Freud’s noted vicissitudes or modes of defense, a subject the artist researched at the National Library of France months after identifying the body of her slain friend –the reversal of an instinct into its opposite. The once vivid and rich inner-life of the artist switched to gray, which led to the compulsion to alter the lifeless gray stone flesh of statues.
“After my traumas I walked away believing I knew nothing of the outside world, my previous existence ceased. I retreated and took on the psychological task of nurturing, evaluating and rededicating my soul to feel safe with the life I was destined to acquire –a mental exertion that took Olympic proportions. The restoration of my soul was worth every tear. I own my life in a manner I never could have speculated before. I fought so hard for it to be so."
–KEARIENE MUIZZ
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
PÉTALES D'HIER WAS PAINTED TO
MIRRORBALL BY EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL (DJ JAZZY JEFF SOLE REMIX) CLICK TO HEAR | |
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Décalage Horaire / Time Difference
Oil on Canvas – 16” x 20”
Price: $10,499
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A microcosm for life-cycles and Paris itself, the cemetery is divided into 97 divisions like miniature arrondissements that replicate the grand boulevards and rues of the prominent city, where each corner presents architectural and artistic wonders.
Life, death and time fill the edges of Décalage Horaire with a mixed interpretation of grief. Naked and aggrieved the angel waits for time to put and end to the sense of loss. On the left, the jawbone is missing from head of the skeleton, representing the inability for the dead to communicate. The hourglass represents the near-infinite feeling that accompanies the act of mourning. The yellow background is indicative of hysteria –the panic-stricken realization that one has been left behind is bright sensation that pierces through the soul.
“Before I moved to Paris I wanted to be cremated –I was set on leaving nothing behind. No bones. No fingernails. I felt my only obligation in life was to give myself away –to give this life everything, and become dust afterward –microscopic and invisible. That sounded comforting. I no longer see my final resting place that way. It is a destination that should bear the dates of all my toil, under my name, chiseled on stone.”
–KEARIENE MUIZZ
ARTIST SOUNDTRACK
DÉCALAGE HORAIRE WAS PAINTED TO
EL MAÑANA BY THE GORILLAZ CLICK TO HEAR
INCI TANEM BY
TARKAN CLICK TO HEAR | | | |
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*Paintings may vary slightly in color from images shown
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