What Families Share With Us Upon Receiving A Memorial Portrait Of Their Departed
“The Mosaic Portrait looks exactly as the photo I gave to Heide, it’s amazing! Just absolutely perfect!”
— Isabelle Baumann
“I can most definitely feel her presence…when I look at her she is so lifelike. I talk to her every day and I love being able to stare into her beautiful eyes.”
— Magan Roper
“What Heide is doing might perhaps be considered in the sense of art practice as spiritual practice. As someone raised in the Catholic faith, the idea of relics, holy paintings, prayerfulness, and reverence hold for me a strange beauty.”
— Bonnie Marranca
“I was relieved to discover that just a small portion of cremated remains was needed to make them, which meant that I could keep my sister close and still honor her wish to be scattered.”
— Genevieve Keeney
Our cremation portraits help families with their grieving process and we hope to create one for you to commemorate a beautiful life worth cherishing
“Heide Hatry’s portraits in ash of my father and younger brother are so beautiful… and moving. It’s difficult to express the connection one feels with their images knowing that part of their essence is utilized in creating them. If you haven’t experienced it yourself, there is something quite poetic and enriching. The moments I spend with their images are like a prayer in the most open, honest, and connected sense of that act.”
— Mark Petracca
“When Heide first told me about the new work she was doing, I mentioned that my family still had our parents’ ashes in the boxes in which they had come from the crematory, and that I loved the idea, but I don’t think that either of us had an inkling of the achingly beautiful and provocative exhibition, “Icons in Ash: Cremation Portraits,” that we would go on to create a few years later.
The exhibition proved so popular and controversial that it garnered more press than any other exhibition in the 25-year history of Ubu Gallery and we kept it on view for more than five months! On a personal level, every morning when I came to the gallery, I was transported into a highly reflective and becalmed state in the very apparent presence of my parents. When I say that, I mean that I felt their distinct physical being around me, as I did as well for the other subjects of Heide’s captivating portraits made with their cremains..”
— Adam Boxer
Graveyards and mausoleums stay where they are;
Take your beloved wherever you go with an ash portrait
“ICONS IN ASH is a personal connection to the survivors of the beloveds. When I considered getting a portrait, I realized that Roberto would approve. In an era where death is still such a taboo, even with the global pandemic, it is important to be reminded of our impermanence. And this way I have a reliquary object, a visual post-modern memento of Roberto, that carries his aura. He remains with me.”
— Kathy Brew
“I had just graduated as a Funeral Director when my sister passed away twelve years ago...It was her desire to be scattered after cremation, but my family and I have not been able to do it because we still find comfort in having her at home. I met Heide Hatry, the artist of Icons in Ash at a funeral industry conference one year ago and was drawn to the powerful portraits she had exhibited there and was amazed by her artistic ability to create portraits out of the cremated remains of loved ones. I was both impressed and relieved to discover that just a small portion of cremated remains was needed to make them, which meant that I could keep my sister close and still honor her wish to be scattered.
The personal memorial piece that Heide created of my sister, Tammy Hoefer, is far beyond a photograph or even an oil portrait. It’s not just an image; it’s not even just art. And it has given comfort to our family in ways we could never have imagined. It is as if she has her identity again: my sister was in a plastic bag inside an urn, with a number as her only identification, and now she is with us in this beautiful portrait of herself. We can recognize her again and feel her beautiful spirit every time we look at her.
The world of grief has received an angel in the talented hands and generous heart of Heide Hatry. Through my work, I am deeply aware of the many extraordinary and poignant ways that human beings have remembered and honored their dead, and I believe that these portraits in ash represent a fundamental new development, the most personalized I’ve come across, and one that holds the promise of important change in our very attitude toward the place of death in our lives.”
— Genevive Keeney (President of the National Museum of Funeral History)