LIFEnearDEATH is a series of 25 oil paintings of the faces of patients living in a hospice in San Francisco. The patients were of many ages, from early forties to late eighties, dying of various illnesses — stroke, congestive heart disease, emphysema, cancer, AIDS, alcoholism, drug addiction — and of simple old age. Some were vividly aware of their condition; some were in dementia or wandering the dreamy labyrinth of final days. Some were on the private, knowing journey through medicated pain. The portraits are meant to show that life is not afraid to approach death; life near death may be painful, distressing, confusing, but it is life; it is the real person bearing it, being present to the last moment, even in the dreamy sleep of the final breath. Click here to request a catalog of the entire series.