Death of the Son

Jacob Cherry

Rendered as a stark monochrome print, Jacob Cherry’s reinterpretation of Ilya Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 (1885) draws from the original painting’s unbearable intimacy, and the collision of remorse, violence, and love within the act of holding. In Cherry’s version, he seeks to distill this moment into texture and contrast—where the grain of the surface becomes inseparable from the body itself.

Care and harm converge; the embrace is both a confession and an act of preservation. Cherry explores care not as consolation, but as aftermath—what remains when love arrives too late to save. The viewer is invited to dwell in the uneasy space where tenderness and destruction share a single gesture.

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Jacob Cherry is a Ph.D. student in philosophy who often escapes his dissertation by turning to color and texture. Born in Romania and of Romani heritage, he carries forward a tradition of storytelling rooted in memory and resilience. 

His work has appeared in The Penn Review and other journals, and is displayed in several local hangouts in Pennsylvania. You can find more of his work on Instagram @jcherrycreative.