Ascensionism

Beauty Can Still Grow in the Dark: Taylor Brooke’s Meditations on Mortality

October decorations — dangling plastic skeletons, towering grim reapers — treat death as a prop we put away on November 1.

But at the Creative Arts Center in Bonham, rather than an autumn fright, Taylor Brooke’s paintings work in the memento mori tradition, the centuries-old artistic practice of incorporating reminders of mortality into visual culture. Renaissance painters tucked skulls into still lifes. Victorian mourners wore jewelry featuring tiny skeletons. The practice wasn’t morbid; it sharpened appreciation for life by acknowledging its limits.

“We all have our time,” Taylor says of this tradition. “The little bit we’re given is short, so we might as well live it fully. Happy, present, and surrounded by the ones who make it feel worth it.”

Rising Through Darkness

“As someone who’s always felt everything so deeply, my art is how I let those emotions take shape, something you can actually see and feel,” Taylor explains. “I think society tends to fear death, but I’ve always found a strange beauty in it. Through my work, I hope to show that side, to bring a little light to what’s always been seen as dark.”

Her painting “Ascensionism,” which sold recently from the center’s gallery, captures that beauty. It presents two figures — one skeletal, one living — positioned face-to-face in intimate proximity. The living figure — a woman with long dark hair and closed eyes — appears serene rather than frightened. The predominantly grayscale palette with warm undertones creates an ethereal quality, and where the figures nearly touch, the softened edges suggest connection rather than confrontation.

The title represents rising through darkness, not escaping it. “Finding peace by embracing the very shadows that once tried to destroy me. It’s about death and rebirth, pain and beauty, becoming whole through what once broke you. Realizing the beauty of darkness,” explains Taylor.

Together Forever

For her piece “Even in Arcadia,” Taylor pushes that meditation on rising through darkness even further. Two complete skeletons tenderly embrace among delicate pink cherry blossoms. The bones are rendered in warm golden beige against deep charcoal backgrounds. 

The piece draws inspiration from history — The Lovers of Valdaro — and music. The Lovers of Valdaro are a pair of human skeletons discovered in Italy in 2007, buried together approximately 6,000 years ago in an embrace. They’ve captivated public imagination precisely because they tell a story that transcends their physical remains: whoever these people were, they mattered enough to each other to be buried in this eternal position.

“The two lovers, no matter what life they lived before, are now together forever,” explains the artist.

A song by Sleep Token, the contemporary metal band known for exploring themes of devotion and loss, completed the conceptual foundation. Taylor also gives a nod to the meaning of “Et in Arcadia ego” — the classical Latin phrase meaning “even in Arcadia, I exist,” with “I” being death itself. The phrase echoes through art history. 

Fleeting Fragile Beauty

The cherry blossoms aren’t decorative accident. “Yes, cherry blossoms were definitely intended,” she says. “I wanted to show how love and beauty can exist even in decay. The blossom symbolized the fleeting fragile beauty that mirrors life. It is the contrast between life and death, beauty and impermanence that I wanted to capture.”

Japanese culture has long associated cherry blossoms with life’s transience — the flowers bloom spectacularly for only a brief period each spring before falling. Taylor’s decision to pair this Eastern symbolism with Western memento mori tradition creates something layered: a meditation on mortality that draws from multiple cultural vocabularies.

What She Wants You to Feel

Standing in front of these paintings isn’t meant to be comfortable. Taylor’s clear about that.

“I want people to feel both the beauty and ache,” she says. “Both touch the idea of life and death. Love and loss aren’t opposites. They’re deeply intertwined. I want them to pause and fill that tension. How fleeting life is and meaningful that makes it.”

That tension acknowledges that mortality and meaning are connected, that our limited time is precisely what gives life its weight.

“Make sure you do what makes you happy, because we only live once,” Taylor says. “Life is short. Do what makes you happy with who you want to do it with, even if it’s just yourself.”

Where the Work Comes From

Taylor’s willingness to spend time with difficult subjects comes from “a place of reflection and survival.” She creates space for viewers to bring their own experiences and questions.

“I’ve lived through enough dark to understand that beauty can still grow there. My art is a way of keeping it balanced. If someone finds their own story in my paintings then that means the world to me.”

An Invitation

This Halloween season, while inflatable decorations deflate in front yards, take time to view Taylor Brooke’s work at CACB. The Creative Arts Center is located at 200 W. 5th St. in Bonham, one block west of the historic Bonham Square. Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon. For more information, call 903-640-2196 or email Admin@CreativeArtsCenterBonham.org.