Wet Paint (2018-)

The white marble sculptures of antiquity that the world has come to accept as pillars of western culture and its beauty ideals, were in fact not always white.  For centuries we have believed in the notion of the “white marble” being the paradigm of austere high-art and beauty ever since they were discovered.  The reality is that the sculptures of gods and heroes of ancient Greece have been proven to have been painted in bright, garish waves of rainbow colours.  Not only would they have been painted but also had magnificent coatings of gold and silver applied, with eyes made of inlays of glass and jewels.

And yet we still think of them as white.  A denial of their truth still exists.  Like the sculptures buried deep underground, stripped of their original palette over time and sometimes purposefully erased,  we draw a parallel between the excavation of the LGBTQ identity.  In recent years the discussion of queer rights has come to the forefront of mainstream thought and politics.  No longer buried in the depths of the closet or denied their true colours.  From the ruins of a people that has been suppressed throughout history, we find an unveiling in process, a repainting.  And like the artefacts of antiquity, there is a fragmentation, a feeling of absence and permanence persists.  The queer body disembodied, or born with pieces waiting to be reconciled or lost.