Afterlife Rave -  2003 - 23”x261/4” acrylic gouache on paper

         This from a book on archaeology that I’ve had since I was a kid. It was a diagram
of the Tomb of Queen Shubad of Ur,the world's earliest city-state. It was in the Kingdom
of Sumer, in what is now Iraq. It always looked to me like a skeleton nightclub, with
dancing and laughing and animated conversations, so I gave it disco lighting. In reality
these people were forced into the tomb to join their dead queen in the next life. They
drank poison, and sang and played music until they died.