Tombeau Imaginaire 18 2019

Elina Brotherus made *Tombeau Imaginaire 18* with photography. I like the word *tombeau* because it sounds so fancy, but it means "tomb". So, this is about imagining a tomb. But why? Well, artists have always been fascinated by mortality. Think about it, art is a way to cheat death. This photo places a figure in a landscape. She's kind of like a punctuation mark in the scene. It might be fun to imagine her as a wandering soul finding a place to rest. The water reflects an alternate world, a portal to the nether regions, or maybe just a cool optical trick! The way the rocks surround the water gives the piece a feeling of enclosure and reflection. She's made other work that uses similar motifs of people and landscapes, continuing a long history of artists trying to find themselves in the world.