Description

Artist Statement by Dustin Ferguson

Three days before my mother passed, I stood in a field of snow and raised my camera. I didn’t know then what I was capturing. I only knew the stillness, the starkness, the way the sky and earth blurred into one endless white. In the foreground, a cross bearing Christ. A grave just behind. And in the distance, a tree—bare, skeletal, but not gone.

Tree After Death is a photograph of foreshadowing, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It has since become a mirror of my grief. The tree, stripped by winter, appears lifeless. But I know it will bloom again. That truth—quiet, cyclical, and cruelly patient—is what I hold onto.

This image is about the illusion of endings. About how death, like winter, is not the final word. It’s about the ache of being left behind, of standing in a season where everything feels frozen, knowing that life will return—but not yet. Not for me.

Losing my parents has been the hardest thing I’ve ever faced. Their souls, I believe, have moved on. But I remain here, in the white silence, waiting for spring. They say time heals. I’m not there yet. I may not be for a while. But like the tree, I trust that one day, I will bloom again.

This is my offering. My mourning. My hope.