Schoolgirl Burial 

Sarah Joncas' painting presents a schoolgirl in a dark forest, her attention focused on a cluster of mushrooms. The forest, since ancient times, has been a place of mystery and transformation in the human psyche, a space where the boundaries between reality and the subconscious blur. Consider the mushrooms, symbols of hidden knowledge and the cycle of life and death, a motif found across cultures from ancient Egypt to Renaissance alchemy. The girl's posture, kneeling in what appears to be a ritualistic act, is reminiscent of figures in classical depictions of mourning or offering. She gently touches one of the mushrooms, as if making contact with something long gone. This image speaks to a deeper, archetypal narrative—a journey into the self, where the boundaries between the rational and the instinctual dissolve, and the past resurfaces in the present.