A current art exhibition in Astoria, Oregon, is doing something most of us avoid: it puts death and grief at the center of the conversation. "Thanatopsis — Contemplations on Death, Grief, and Renewal," on view through November 12, 2026 at Clatsop Community College's Royal Nebeker Art Gallery, brings together three artist-doulas whose work opens space for the emotions Western society usually pushes aside.
Art meets end-of-life care
The show centers on multidisciplinary artist Marne Lucas, who in 2016 became a professional end-of-life doula — someone who provides emotional, spiritual and practical support to dying people and their families. Through her Bardo Project, founded in 2015 after her friend Chris Brunkhart was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, Lucas collaborates with terminally ill artists to establish their creative legacies and exhibit their work posthumously. "Bardo" is the Tibetan Buddhist term for the transitional existence between death and rebirth.
"Western society avoids confronting death," Lucas has said. "We are conditioned to treat people with terminal diagnoses in a fragile manner and not as themselves." Her answer is infrared thermal imagery that treats dying artists as "spirit guides to the underworld," collages like Aurum Cascade, Skull 2, mirrored sculptures inscribed "Birth'd, Earthed, Death'd," and her experimental four-channel infrared film Padma Mudra (2022).
Three doulas, one gallery
"Thanatopsis" widens the lens by bringing Lucas together with fellow artist-doulas Emma Lewis Acker and Dardinelle Troen, whose works in collage, assemblage, sculpture, photography and collaborative altars consider impermanence and transformation. The gallery hosted a free artists' reception on October 15 and an End-of-Life Doula Artists Talk on October 16 with all three artists, plus guided meditations on mortality at nearby Astoria Visual Arts. "Presenting the creativity of those pondering, or facing and accepting the end of life, Bardo Project allows viewers to enjoy visual beauty while engaging with mortality," Lucas says.
Takeaway: Confronting your mortality makes you really grateful, Lucas says — "but it's very hard for us to wake up every day and go, 'Okay, I just have now.'" For two more weeks in Astoria, this show is making space for exactly that.
Watch: Videos on Marne Lucas, the Bardo Project and her work as an end-of-life doula
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Life of Riley (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0