Christina Markey- Sky Burial Museum

The artwork that caught my attention was the Sky Burial. I definitely think this piece is art because of the color, creativity, designs, intricacy, and time that must have gone into creating this piece. The location that the artwork is in the museum draws the attention of visitors because it is with all the other large, colorful oil on canvas pieces. I became interested in this piece because it reminded me of a treehouse I would love to have as a child.

By just examining the art piece you see a large luxurious 4 story house that is held up by huge branches intertwining it that it looks out of a fairytale book. This is a treehouse that children would dream of having. Where everyone works together to keep the treehouse running and kept up. Birds and dogs stand watch as people below work to keep the treehouse running and in shape. This is a kid’s imagination put into a painting. Other treehouses surround it and there is a whole community of luxurious treehouses surrounding it. The pink color scheme of the house with the bright sun shining in shows the environment is friendly and peaceful. The four stories of the house are all different and unique, but all have a common factor of a dark pink fence on the deck of each floor surrounding it, showing the house is still safe. Children play underneath the house with the nature that surrounds it. It is all so serene. Many large birds have nests on and next to the house showing everything is one with nature. The thick tree branches show the house is immensely stable and not going anywhere. The leaves and trees are lively. 

This is all that I picked up from the painting at first glance. It seems happy and peaceful like a dream not a nightmare. As I read the information about it next to the painting, I found that the message being conveyed through the artwork was much deeper and gruesome. The art piece represents a funerary monument for a decaying civilization. The name “sky burial” means a funerary practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose, left exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals like carrion birds. The people in the bottom of this oil canvas I realized are people taking the wounded or dead to this sky burial where the large birds and dogs devour these bodies. The other houses in the back of this painting are actually representations of institutions we need to get rid of such as prisons and gas stations.