O! Relentless Death! Cover image by Lee Fearnside; design by Andrew Fearnside.
George Michael, 2017. Linocut by Andrew Fearnside.
Prince, 2017. Linocut by Lee Fearnside.
David Bowie, 2017. Linocut by Andrew Fearnside.
Carrie Fisher, 2017. Linocut by Lee Fearnside.
Gwen Ifill, 2017. Linocut by Andrew Fearnside.
The American Psychological Association recently found that 59% of Americans feel that the current era is a low point in our country’s history. According to the Hollywood Reporter, more celebrities died in 2016 than in the previous three years. The gravitas of celebrity deaths seemed even heavier alongside the tumultuous presidential election of 2016.
In O! Relentless Death! Celebrities, Loss, and a Year of Mourning (Chimera), sibling artists Lee and Andrew Fearnside collaborated with twenty-three writers in mourning seventeen celebrities who died in 2016. The Fearnsides portrayed each celebrity in a relief print, paired with writers’ poetry and prose narratives.
“As the days and weeks followed the election, it also felt like more and more celebrities I had loved from my childhood and adolescence died, as if the world couldn’t take it anymore and was killing people off,” says artist Lee Fearnside. Andrew Fearnside asks “what power is unlocked when we grieve together?”
Writers in O! Relentless Death! include poet laureates, journalists, community organizers, and activists. Among the celebrities in memoriam include David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher.
O! Relentless Death won the 2019 IPPY Outstanding Book of the Year Independent Voice Award.