Death Is Coming

Death is Coming
From the Lost Drawings Series by Peter Bogdanov
Graphite and ink on coarse sketch paper (early career)
He’s not floating. Not lurking. He’s crawling—through the wall.
In “Death is Coming,” an early and unforgettable piece from Peter Bogdanov’s Lost Drawings Series, the artist reimagines death not as a grand cloaked figure, but as a skeletal creature forcing its way into the world—shoulder first, bone fingers dragging, halfway through the wall it just shattered.
The broken wall is jagged, the opening too small, too real—as if death wasn’t invited, but came anyway. You can feel the scrape of drywall, the crumble of brick dust, the finality in its motion. Bogdanov’s use of graphite gives the figure a dry, brittle texture, while ink deepens the shadows in the eye sockets and wall debris, making the intrusion feel urgent, inevitable, and physical.
This is not a theatrical Death. This is the one you don’t expect. The one that shows up on a quiet night and doesn’t knock. It doesn’t ride a horse or carry a scythe. It claws its way through the barrier—concrete, wood, or denial—one cracked knuckle at a time.
Bogdanov drew this early in his career, but it already carried the themes he would later become known for: confrontation, transformation, and the tension between decay and emergence. Tragically, the original drawing was lost in the 2024 hurricanes that destroyed the artist’s Florida archive. This high-resolution scan, rescued from a hard drive, is all that remains of the original sheet.
To collect “Death is Coming” is to witness the exact moment the wall gives way. It’s the visual embodiment of a truth we try to cover up with plaster and paint: death doesn’t wait to be welcomed. It breaks through.