Zulaika Vallance

El Amor No Muere Con La Muerte

My name is Zulaika Vallance.

I’m an illustrator and screenprinter from Gibraltar.

My Dad is my best friend. When he died I found it difficult to visit the cemetery, I thought of it as a scary and shameful place. One day my Mum asked me to help her take flowers to my Dad’s grave. I was so scared and ashamed, I wouldn’t answer people when they asked who the flowers were for, I thought I would just create an awkward tension if I said they were for my dad.

When we got to the cemetery I was scared people there would see me. But I started looking around and saw all the beautiful trinkets people left for their dead loved ones at their graves. This showed me I was not alone and made me see the beauty in continuing a relationship with a loved one who dies.

I helped my Mum cut and place the flowers in vases on my Dad’s grave and spoke to him at his grave about how my day was going and how mum and my sister were. It felt amazing.

In these screenprints I set out to portray how beautiful this continuation of relationships with the deceased can be, whether that’s through; leaving flowers, toys, wooden carvings, rosary beads, signs, cards etc…
I want to show that the cemetery is a beautiful place to explore this relationship and to abolish the stigma surrounding talking about and visiting dead loved ones.

Please don’t feel scared to visit your passed loved ones.