Velvet Buzzsaw: Ending Explained

Josephina

Looking first at Josephina's death then, you can't say that Dease doesn't have a sense of humour. Damning her to be trapped inside a graffiti mural after shaming Damrish (Daveed Diggs) for leaving her impressive, wealthy gallery space to join an unknown artist collective focussing on street work, it's a little ironic to see her shocked face forever imbued with the work she deems beneath her.

Importantly, her new lifetime as an art piece receives yet another layer when taken in the context of her previous quip: "What's the point of art if no one sees it?" - yes, she's been branded within a giant graffiti mural, but it's in the back alley of a carpark in a neighbourhood she'd never usually set foot in. No-one of the art elite will ever see her in this painting, relegating her to a new life of obscurity as a footnote in a piece defined by the very work she hates.

Josephina has been punished for seeking fame and fortune from stealing a man's work out of his own home and usurping his last wishes in excellent form, becoming tricked into entering a supernatural gallery that then takes hold of her through creeping paint trails. The art world has consumed her with as little consideration as she consumed everything else around her: her relationships, her job, and of course, Dease's work.