Pushing up daisies

Pushing up daisies (1993) is a darkly humorous work by Berend Strik, using the English idiom for being dead and buried — "pushing up daisies" — as both subject and title.

Strik describes the work: "A densely layered colored pencil drawing depicting a reclining figure surrounded by swirling red, suggesting both the roses of romantic love and the blood of mortality. The composition is suffused with an erotic charge that is inseparable from its morbid undertones."

The idiom "pushing up daisies" is used to describe death in a deliberately light, euphemistic way — making it easier to talk about what is ultimately the most serious fact of human existence. Strik's drawing engages with this dark humor while also exploring the erotic dimensions of the reclining figure.

The 1993 date places this work in the early phase of Strik's career, when he was developing his distinctive approach to drawing and mixed media. This period predates his major engagement with stitched photography but already shows his interest in the body, mortality, and the transformation of familiar phrases into visual metaphor.

Sources: Galerie Fons Welters