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We offer Memorial Portraits, made out of ashes

Name: Minds On Design Lab Inc.
Price range: $

An enduring work of art that transcends the mere image, our memorial portrait IS your beloved in the most direct and fundamental sense, a presence that you will feel.

A resource by Icons in Ash

The original Icons in Ash method, is a completely hand-made Mosaic portrait – as with its biblical precedent an act of reconstituting what had been broken, in this case our relationship to our beloved deceased – was invented and developed by Heide Hatry 10 years ago. Individual ash particles are first separated into different shades of grey and then embedded meticulously, one by one, into a surface of warm beeswax, until, over several layers of delicate application, a rich and textured likeness is ultimately achieved. In cases where there is too little color variation among the grey particles, we may increase the palette range using pulverized coal and white marble dust. Contained in an elegant wooden shadow-box frame equipped with museum-quality glass.

Our exclusive, patented process was perfected over years of experimenting and thos is much more affordable and does look very similar to the original technique.

Our Inspiration

My father’s death at a young age left me with a persistent sense of unresolved grief and the sense of a daunting void within. Many years later, after a dear friend had committed suicide, I sought solace through my art practice as a way coping with this now intensified and fiercely resurfacing grief. The ways of art are ineffable. Following a sudden inspiration, I “understood” that I had to make portraits of my father and my friend using their cremated remains if I wanted to come to terms with their deaths. Over a long and emotionally complicated period, I eventually perfected a labor-intensive mosaic technique, but more important than the technical breakthroughs, my experience revealed the possibility of a deep solace and a life-altering communion with my beloved through these profoundly present and emotionally-charged portraits that I felt compelled to share with others who were suffering from loss of their own.

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