The work Dead Portraits is influenced by the work of Walter Schels. Particularly his project Life before Death where he photographed hospital patients before and immediately after their death. Schels characterized this process as “a clinical treatment of the unknown”.

The photographic project Dead Portraits has been motivated by the fear generated by the coronavirus pandemic, as the possibility of death became more prominent in people's lives. It confronts society's distant attitude towards death, which is often seen as a taboo subject and treated with avoidance or embellishment, such as using makeup techniques on the deceased. This approach may reflect an unhealthy treatment of death within Western society.