The themes of life and death have been explored by humanity from the beginning of time. My art has traditionally pushed boundaries, with all of it's varied methods and substantive content, it's relational to the trials and feelings in my life. This series embraces the grief and pain that revolves around separation, significant losses and endings. It explores mortality, with it's suffering, its chronic pain of unresolved grief and our own aversion and avoidance to the subject, all the while, affirming the beauty and joy of living.
"When I Think Of You, I Can Hardly Breathe" by sergiodelgado
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I created these works as a way of confronting my personal fears and externalizing my inner traumas. Cognitive perception, emotional response, dreams and past behavior, provide the content for this work. Creating these images became almost like performance art of the context and aftermath of a significant loss.
Emotional expressions, exploration for personal meaning, integration and transformation are the purview of the humanities and arts. Often times, that growth is what allows us to develop into more empathetic beings. It becomes painfully apparent at the time of major personal loss and trauma.
Despite life's moments of despair, I affirm life and believe that each of us has been given gifts in our capacity to love, learn, grow, to choose how to respond to life, whether to deny or to integrate all its aspects. To understand the universal truth and connection between cause and effect. We all can consciously confront death and the limits of life, and struggle to decide whether 'tis better to have loved and lost, than not to have loved at all." Addressing my audience: My main goal is to reach the viewer and bridge a connection to the work.
"The Air I Don't Breathe" by sergiodelgado
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Sergio A. Delgado 
Pro says:
It's a little unsettling, especially the subject of death and suicide, but there is a reason why I'm exploring this subject matter. I plan on having a spokesperson from a suicide prevention at my show that way my art can open up discussions and people can get educated and enjoy my art all at the same time.
Suicide (Latin suicidium, from sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of intentionally terminating one's own life, although in many dictionaries it connotes "willful destruction of one's self-interest," not necessarily physical death. Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life. Most Western and Asian religions—the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Hinduism—consider suicide a dishonorable act; in the West it was regarded as a serious crime and offense against God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life. Japanese views on honor and religion led to seppuku being respected as a means to atone for mistakes or failure during the samurai era; Japanese suicide rates remain some of the developed world's highest. In the 20th century suicide in the form of self-immolation has been used as a form of protest, and in the form of kamikaze and suicide bombing as a military or terrorist tactic. Sati was a Hindu funeral practice in which the widow would immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.
Medically assisted suicide (euthanasia, or the right to die) is a controversial ethical issue involving people who are terminally ill, in extreme pain, and/or have minimal quality of life through illness. Self-sacrifice for others is not usually considered suicide, as the goal is not to kill oneself but to save another.
"New Work Titles" by sergiodelgado
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The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern, associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression, inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. Suicide is sometimes interpreted in this framework as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die. Most people who attempt suicide do not complete suicide on a first attempt; those who later gain a history of repetitions are significantly more at risk of eventual completion.
Nearly a million people worldwide die by suicide annually. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million attempted suicides every year. Elderly males have the highest suicide rate, although rates for young adults have been increasing in recent years.
Other factors that may be related are as follows (note that this is not meant as a comprehensive list, but rather as a summary of notable causes):
"New Artwork Coming Soon" by sergiodelgado
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Suffering (e.g. physical or emotional agony that is not correctable)
Stress (e.g. grief after the death of a loved one)
Crime (e.g. escaping judicial punishment and the dehumanization and boredom of incarceration; self-punishment due to guilt)
Mental illness (e.g. depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or post traumatic stress disorder)
Catastrophic injury (e.g. paralysis, disfigurement, loss of limb)
Adverse environment (e.g. sexual abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, homelessness, bullying, social isolation, discrimination)
Financial loss (e.g. loss of job/assets, debts)
Self sacrifice reasons (e.g. a soldier throwing his body on a grenade) (this is not considered suicide by some because the individual does not have the goal of ending his or her life per se, but rather shielding others from harm at the possible risk of losing their own life)
Accidental suicide (e.g. while playing Russian roulette or Overdose)
Unresolved or unresolvable sexual issues (e.g. sexism, sexual orientation, gender dysphoria, unrequited love, aftermath of a break up, involuntary celibacy, acquiring an incurable sexually transmitted infection.
To avoid shame or dishonour (e.g. the Bushido ideal, under which a disgraced samurai could regain his honor by performing seppuku)
Terrorism (e.g. suicide bombings)
Extreme nationalism (e.g. the Kamikaze, Selbstopfer, and Kaiten suicide weapons)
Philosophical belief that life has no inherent value (e.g. absurdism, pessimism, nihilism)
Religious cults (e.g. Heaven's Gate and Peoples Temple)
Loneliness, especially when prolonged.
Emptiness and a deep lack of satisfaction from life.
"2008 Art Invitation (Draft)" by sergiodelgado
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BillyWarhol 
Pro says:
I didn't know of Poet Anne Sexton until I read her Poem on yer Invite*
Wanting to Die
Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.
Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.
But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.
Twice I have so simply declared myself
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.
In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.
I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.
Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.
To thrust all that life under your tongue! --
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad bone; bruised, you'd say,
and yet she waits for me, year and year,
to so delicately undo an old would,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.
Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,
leaving the page of a book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.
Sad to see so many Great Ones u've listed there as having left us to soon*
U are always left wondering what might have been*
"Killer of Me" by sergiodelgado
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Working on my next art show entitled "Kill Yourself Now; Heal Yourself Now" I plan to have 15 new pieces by Fall and have a show in Dallas.
Suicide in English Literature and Art
Suicide, the act of deliberately killing oneself, is a prominent action in many important works of English literature. Authors use the suicide of a character to portray defiance, despair, love, or honor. Whether it is written as the ultimate act of devotion or the result of depression, the act of suicide was and is a prevalent action within the context of English literature and art. The subject of suicide itself is controversial. While the act of suicide can be symbolic in literature, the act itself still possesses the ability to cause controversy in the real world. Some authors who have created characters that commit suicide have committed suicide themselves. Ernest Hemingway shot himself in 1961. Some of his short stories included suicidal themes The poet Sylvia Path committed suicide by self-asphyxiation in 1963. Here is a small list of suicides:
Virginia Woolf (author)
Jim Morrison (musician)
Sylvia Plath (poet)
Ernest Hemingway (author)
Anne Sexton (poet)
Arshile Gorky (painter)
George Eastman (businessman scientist)
Jimi Hendrix (musician)
Bobby Kielt (entrepreneur)
Marilyn Monroe (actress)
Kurt Cobain (musician)
Charley Parker (musician)
Sid Vicious (musician)
Diane Arbus (photographer)
Judy Garland (singer and actress)
Mark Rothko (painter)
Gordon Pond (artist)
"Suddenly I'm Not So Alive" by sergiodelgado
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BillyWarhol 
Pro says:
Awesome Art*
Sergio A. Delgado 
*********
I too lament the lack of Comments that never trickle in on my Art shots*
I appreciate your Fave!!
Thank U!! ;)) Peace*
"How Dare You Sleep" by sergiodelgado
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Part of my series: Kill Yourself Now; Heal Yourself Now
Uploaded by Sergio A. Delgado on 24 May 08, 6.58PM PDT.