Grim Reaper, Prime Minister, Vultures, The Virus, Wheel of Life

Early April 2020 saw a dramatic increase in Covid casualties in the UK / England. A very bleak, grim reality after only two weeks in Lockdown. So blood red & full of anxiety.

The Grim Reaper cloaked & anonymous slides across the frame with his scythe.

The Reaper stands indifferently looking at the bodies lying below him.

Britons, The Grim Reaper Wants You. This image references the famous WW1 recruitment poster of 1914 that displayed Field Marshall Lord Kitchener pointing to the viewer in appeal to sign up & support war effort.

An earlier card (027 i) referenced that the PM has contracted the virus. During the sharp rise in mortality the PM’s symptoms worsened & he was admitted to intensive care. It also exposed a surprising weakness in senior government. If the PM dies, who actually is in charge?

The Wheel of Life. A symbol painted in medieval churches symbolising the cycles of life, here ten. The circle is found in many cultures that also represent these cycles of life, death, the universe. What struck me was how similar this symbolic Wheel, with its ten spokes is to the structure of the coronavirus with its protein spikes below on 031 g. & 031 i.

[See above] Some early terms used to describe the spread of the virus.

The unreasonable beauty of the virus structure.