Seraphim
Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Isaiah 6:2–3
This series of works explores fetishisation as a process of investing conventionally non-religious objects and activities with spiritual significance. Kinky sexual practices and paraphernalia well known within the male homosexual community—such as piss play, latex wear, and scruffy underclothes—are reimagined as ritual.
The series abounds with art historical references, to the work of 20th-century artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Helen Chadwick, as well as to art of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. Several of the images echo works by Michelangelo Buonarroti, with poses adapted from his well-known Pietà sculptures in Florence and the Vatican City, and from the ignudi frescoed on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
By playing with such Catholic imagery, the works not only make its homoerotic undertones explicit, but also suggest that queer people, so often rejected by religious institutions, find their own modes of living and worship—modes that are no less rational or meaningful, and that might indeed prove healthier and more rewarding.
Making of
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