Carrion is part of the Zombie Diaries series of painting.

The bird here is a Brahminy Kite, a common local predator of the skies. It also eats dead animals, hence the title. I wanted to draw something about death. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic has been on my mind. Our Zombie here died two times and it is still a Zombie! It is afraid to die, so every time it does, it jumps from one part of the body to the next. From being a Headless Zombie, it is now an Intestinal Zombie! The background of the artwork is a mishmash of environments that represents the Intestinal Zombie’s options and thoughts about what dying means.

About Zombie Diaries

Zombie Diaries is based on the premise that zombies have taken over the world. There are no human beings left! We have either turned to zombies or were eaten by them! What happens if zombies continue to live without human beings, their main source of food? What do they eat? How do they survive? What do they feel? Each painting is a diary entry by a zombie. They live among nature and the ruins of the city, adapting to an environment where Nature has started to take over. In this series of paintings, I chose to depict elements from the city I live in. Plants, animals, infrastructure and environments are based on places I have been to, things I have seen and researched about in Singapore. To me, zombies are a metaphor for our fears. Because they are essentially humans, zombies are also metaphoric for what we fear about ourselves.

Zombie Diaries is conceptualised as a deck of cards with an accompanying zine that describes the meaning of the cards. The deck can be used for a game of story-telling, oracle card readings or as prompts in journal writing.