RANDY SIMMONS Her Last Breath Exploded Like Fireworks in a Cold January Sky, 2024

RANDY SIMMONS  

Her Last Breath Exploded Like Fireworks in a Cold January Sky, 2024 

44” x 30” 

charcoal and white conté 

$1,700 

@randysimmonsdrawings 

www.randysimmonsdrawings.com  

What I remember first and probably the most is the silence that hung thick in her room. She’d been attached to an oxygen machine for the last year, and it had become the pulsing soundtrack of her life. And it was off now like the tv in the corner had been the whole time. Larry had been with her for her last breath. We had been expecting it. He knew when he heard it and called me. But I had arrived too late. She was warm still and I wondered where she was on this last incredible trip. Could she hear our goodbyes? 

When I started this piece, I wanted it to be about the experience of dying and the last exhale drawn in a beautiful way. This work was entirely improvised in direction and composition. I had no idea how this would resolve and sometimes I had my doubts that I could save it. I added the dandelion which refueled the top of the composition because it looks like fireworks, and I had used dandelions symbolically in previous drawings of my family. While the drawing’s concepts came from my own specific experiences, I think that everyone seeing this will take something different away. For me, I caught a moment and an eternity all at once. 

I hope my last breath looks like this.