Paula Mahoney

The deathbed is of my father’s corpse lying in bed. The image was shot with me standing on the bed, my tripod above my father’s corpse, and with him, small between my legs. I mirrored the image and, in doing this, emphasised the folds of the sheets in the space between the bodies. This space came to symbolise the metaphysical yearning of loved ones to accompany those we love upon their death. It offered me a place to lay with my father, forever cradled by his death, a space where grief can entwine with the dead. A place of lamentation. Here death’s face has uniformity, with the face of my father dead looking very similar to my mother at her death and just, I imagine, as I will look at my own.