Nature Moves Through Carcasses (Embroidered Drawing)

(Video and Music by Julian Bowers)

Nature Moves Through Carcasses pays tribute to Molly O’Dwyer—a young woman whose life and memory became the emotional and narrative catalyst for my graphic novel  Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press, 2025). The embroidered drawing process is one of my most personal approaches to illustration. Each stitch becomes a quiet act of remembrance and transformation. I start by drawing on newsprint, reinforcing it with three additional layers of paper.

The newsprint naturally deteriorates over time while I stitch and add items such as ribbons, and beads.  This page was added to over several years. It’s become a tapestry.  Symbols and metaphors are central to my creative process. Birds—dead, living, skeletal—alongside forest animals and insects, appear throughout Salt Green Death as messengers, echoing the characters’ search for liberation and redemption. The bird is gradually overtaken, gently reclaimed by nature—mirroring the slow, inevitable force of decomposition. Light shines through as Molly returns to stardust.

“Katarina Thorsen has pushed creative non-fiction in astonishing new directions. Salt Green Death invites the reader to take an active role in sorting through documents and correspondence, drawing their own conclusions and inferences along the way. And she weaves (sometimes literally) the sorry saga of the O’Dwyer family together with her vivid charcoal drawings and buoyant, color renderings of the natural world, lending poetry and grace to this tale of utter heartbreak.”
—Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style

“This is a remarkable book: a graphic novel that will challenge your notions about the meaning of the genre. In essence, it is an investigation into a history of family trauma but Thorsen’s presentation of the material that has constituted her research turns Salt Green Death into a catalogue of innovations: ingenious compositional turns and strategies make every page a delight, a map of visual possibilities. Doctor’s reports, family letters, administrative records join in a dance with feathers, fur, yarn, bone: you will not find another book so lovingly devoted to textures of such variety. Thorsen has the mind of an archivist, the eye of a painter and the heart of a poet.
— Bishakh Som, Apsara Engine

“Katarina Thorsen’s extraordinary talents as a writer, artist and researcher shine through in every page. This book is a visual delight that assaults the senses. I loved every inch of it!”
— Eve Lazarus, Cold Case BC, Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck

MORE INFO AT: SALT GREEN DEATH