Across various cultures, owls are often seen as messengers or guardians of the spiritual realm, sometimes associated with death or the afterlife. Their nocturnal nature and silent flight can evoke a sense of mystery or connection to the unseen, suggesting they guide souls or offer insight during times of loss.

Night Owl has always been more of a sleepwalk than an artwork. A fragment of unconscious expression, born out of grief in the early hours of that morning.  A dream. 

I've always been a very light sleeper. If you were to whisper in my ear as I slept, you would wake me.

It was around 2 a.m. when I was awakened by the hooting of an owl from a tree outside my bedroom window. I recall thinking we don't have owls this far from the woods. I looked through my window into the dark and saw nothing but leafless branches. I hadn't dreamt this, as I had heard the owl hooting as I approached the window. Then nothing. Nothing. So I went back to sleep with my loss.

Usually, whenever I dream about my mother, I am instantly awakened by the same thought: This must be a dream because you are dead. But on one pivotal occasion, I didn't. I was aware of it without thought.

It was as if my mother and aunt had come to tell me they were fine, I would be fine, and they were moving on. I wasn't told this. I hadn't thought this. I just felt it. And I was presented with the notion that this was to be shared for the sake of someone else. Then I awoke, sparked to create something. 

So as most slept, I silently cobbled together Night Owl from unworked offcuts of wood, with provisions for this story to be shared . There’s something  of a  vulnerability about it that still hits home. 
 

If there is a Rosetta Stone as such to all this, it was my artwork, as it knew where I was when I didn't. Philip Wharton.

https://www.boxroom17.net/artworks/after-life/