By: James Groleau

Medium: Mezzotint
Imagesize: 7 x 5 inches
Edition of 50

Outbreak V is part of James Groleau’s Blood Bone Elegy, a series conceived in the months following the September 11 attacks and centered on an allegorical struggle between Life and Death. Nude figures rendered as exposed muscle stand shoulder to shoulder with skeletons, their bodies locked in rigid, almost choreographed poses.

The image suggests contagion and escalation—death no longer guiding from behind, but fully present among the living. Groleau collapses distinctions between flesh and bone, implying a moment when conflict spreads beyond control and the boundary between life and death dissolves.