The very moment of death is captured with intense familiarity in Pamela Zwehl-Burke’s exhibition “Transformed: Inspiration-Expiration.”

“Everyone has experienced the passing of a dear being,” said the artist. “And I think the art can provide a reference point.”

The exhibition is a result of her experiences, and work during her sabbatical.

“I sat drawing my mother as she declined and took her last breath,” she said. “Five months later, I watched my father take his last breath.”

She transcribed the drawings into small etchings, a total of 1,400 slides, which now encircle the Atkinson Gallery in a “presumed uninterrupted cycle of living breath.”

Still lifes of items that belonged to her parents hang above the etchings.

“In order to make sense of their passing, I set up still lifes with relics from their lives – a glove, a book, and so on,” she said.

Most paintings include a live animal, or a plant “as a reminder of the living.” The sound of breathing accompanies the art.

“It’s important to be aware while we breathe,” Zwehl-Burke said. “Because once we cease to breathe, it all ends.”

“Running from you own mortality is like running from a black beast,” she continued. “I’ve become more peaceful since I started this.”

Terre Ouwehand, chair of the English department, agrees with the artist.

“We can’t shy away from death,” she said. “It’s moving to see these lines of ink that can so capture some of those moments that only someone who’s attending to the dying can see.”

“What’s so impressive about the exhibit is that it’s a wonderful confluence of Pamela’s art, her craftsmanship, and her life experience,” she continued, adding that art is a fantastic teaching tool that demonstrates how painful and challenging experiences can be a vehicle for artistic expression.

Ouwehand said she will hold a poetry reading during the exhibition “to honor the artist’s journey, and the connection as artistic colleagues.”

Colleague, associate professor Nina Warner, is also amazed by the exhibition.

“Pamela is a very dedicated artist,” Warner said. “She makes the time, and has the ability to draw difficult things.”

Zwehl-Burke, who teaches art history, drawing, and typography, spent time in her studio to discover alternative media. As a result, three video-poems will be displayed on two-inch screens to give the feeling of “holding the world in your hand,” she said.

The cycle of life and death continues in her book, “Bud-Bloom-Burst,” which contains 26 etchings showing the cycle of the rose, from nub to rosehip.

Every drawing is strikingly vibrant, and the whole gallery pulsates with the sense of staying alive in the moment, rather than dying.

“It is a skill to stay present in the moment, “Zwehl-Burke said. “I find in drawing a way to sink past thought into a study of the essential.”

“One attempts to transform a passing experience into a held moment, in spite of the evident impermanence of it all,” she said.