When I’m Dead My Dearest 2020
oil on panel- 48 X 48
This piece is reimagined from the 2018 painting of the same name. In the same context, this work depicts an imagined figure of Steve fighting with a vine of ivy around his neck. The viewer can't tell if he is tightening the vine or pulling it off of his throat. This struggle is associated with the struggle that Steve encountered with mental health in the months leading up to his death in 2017. In the setting of this work, the figure is kneeling in a granite grave plot surrounded by ivy as is the case with Steve’s family grave plot in Clemson where he is buried.
The thick lettering to Rossetti’s poem, “When I’m Dead My Dearest”, is visible under the layers in the underpainting, and peeks through in the yellow specks of the background.