Grace Dunne
she/her
Grief in Translation
This body of work began with personal experiences of grief and a curiosity about how people across time and cultures make sense of loss. I sought to understand how mourning is expressed, and shared, not just in my own life, but in the world at large. Through research into funeral customs, spiritual beliefs, and memorial traditions from places such as India, Mexico, Ireland, and Ancient Egypt, I discovered recurring symbols of love and remembrance. These ideas became the foundation for my visual work.
The project includes a tarot deck that reimagines traditional archetypes through the lens of death, using storytelling to explore how grief is felt and how it evolves. I created four illustrated posters that explore how we deal with grief by exploring how we carry loss, live with absence, and understand death as part of nature. The final painting depicts a gift passed from one set of hands to another, symbolising the things we inherit through loss.
