Description

Artist Statement by Dustin Ferguson

He stands cloaked in shadow, wings folded like secrets, carved from wood yet heavy with meaning. The Reaper does not chase, does not speak. He waits. He carries.

This image is not about fear—it’s about weight. The weight of every soul harvested, every life ended, every silence that follows. His face is hidden from the world, but lit from within, because death is not the absence of light—it is its final witness.

“The Keeper of What Is to Come” is a meditation on duty without glory. A portrait of the one who bears the burden no one wants, yet all must meet. He is not cruel. He is necessary. And in his stillness, we see the truth: that endings are not evil—they are inevitable.

This photograph asks us to look beyond fear and into the quiet labor of death. To honor the one who carries us when we can no longer walk.