Last Day, Pompeii is a room sized comic book about the hours before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, when everything was still and quiet. The timber beams of The Parsonage serve as the borders of each “comic” panel, and are intended to recall the structure of frescos found in the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii. The title is a mimic of the painting,  The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Bryullov, but shortened to feel lighter, and more carefree.

The central idea is that the viewer knows what is to come, but the inhabitants do not. Instead they are asleep, or drifting softly through the night. As the series evolved, I began to envision a time shift, an overlay of the present on top of the past. I started to think of a modern visitor experiencing the ruins, then leaving to stay in a villa, their footsteps tracing a light imprint on top of the past. The words “Last Day, Pompeii” became a line in a diary, something unburdened, unknowing, and free. This double vision shifts back and forth in each piece, past to present

— Hannah Secord Wade