Memento Mori — Yuri Shimojo

“By the time I stopped counting how many petals I had painted,

I started to see each petal as a life. I conversed with each. I became them.”

This repetitive act became a form of ritual, akin to Buddhist monks counting each prayer bead.

Not long after March 11, 2011, the day of the earthquake and tsunami, Shimojo was in New York City, far from her ancestral homeland. She heard reports on the news of Sakura (Japanese cherry trees) blossoming amid the debris in Tōhoku, the epicenter of the earthquake. The disaster caused the deaths of nearly 16,000 people, with thousands more injured and missing.

Shimojo, who lost all of her immediate family members before the age of 30, focuses on celebrating life’s precious, fleeting moments. Shimojo started painting Sakura petals in an attempt to process her pain.

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Memento Mori Exhibitions

The Memento Mori paintings, having traveled the globe over the course of years, signify the artist’s own spiritual journey.

She views this body of work as a universal embrace of gratitude and fear, for life and for death.

Memento Mori, as a body of work, ten years in the making and for decades more to come, the universality of its intentions will continue to blossom, helping us to recognize and embrace our place in the spiritual world.