The Hungry Ghosts
2025
Hungry ghosts are demon-like creatures described in Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Sikh, and Jain texts as the remnants of dead souls who are afflicted with insatiable desire, hunger or thirst as a result of bad deeds or evil intent carried out in their lifetimes. These desires of hungry ghosts are never satisfied so they must endlessly seek to feed off the living. The ravenous quest for more possessions, power and people to consume, consumes them in turn, but it is never enough and they remain empty and dead inside. A Hungry Ghost will stop at nothing to continue feeding- Not war, not rape, not murder, not even the destruction of their own world.
Hungry ghosts are driven to possess weak-willed men and women so as to dispossess their souls and take over their disposable bodies, all the better to consume with. These creatures resemble the souls condemned to hell, yet hungry ghosts occupy the world of the living. Though they are only half-alive themselves, they possess none of the human traits of empathy, compassion or connection to other people, animals or nature. There is a hole where the soul should be that is revealed by their actions. They move through the world, draining and destroying all living things, but behind their eyes there is only cold emptiness.
A myth? A vampire story? Look around. I believe we are living in an era where the hungry ghosts walk among us and rule over us, siphoning off our energy, exploiting our fears and weaknesses. It seems that a mass soul removal has taken place in the world when we were busy doom-scrolling on our phones. The ancient Romans were given "bread and circuses" to distract them from their increasing bondage, while we have been force-fed Meta, Doordash and Netflix to numb us into obedience, increasingly isolated from our humanity as the world collapses around us. If we allow ourselves to be consumed by consumption, we run the risk of becoming hungry ghosts ourselves.
Look. I'd much rather be making art about beauty and nature and this miraculous Earth, but instead I have to use my art practice to process and purge some of the most egregious energies bombarding the world at this time. Alchemizing these dark materials into meaning, allows me to be able to create my real work that offers healing and light when we need it like never before.
