While reading passages from The Bible, I came upon the sentence “because the perishable body burdens the sole”. I thought it such a beautiful passage, and after extensive research saw that this idea is not only present in Christianity (a religion that is still alive), but also in more ancient forms of religion which have (largely) died out. The first source I could find to describe this idea outside of religion was Plato, who describes that soul and the body as two separate forms. In Greek, Mesopotamian, Norse and Egyptian mythology, the same phenomena seemed to be accepted, although the rituals and beliefs involving the life after the body has seized to be were more varied. 

Based on these four ancient religions, I built up four paintings which reflect the idea of the body, and the soul. The material of the paint lays thickly upon the immaterial pure white of the canvas, as the reverse of the immaterial soul that rests in the body. At the same time, the paintings hint towards the different mythologies that they represent, alluding more clearly with their titles.