Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Anderson, Kim

Area of Concentration

Art

Abstract

Saint Sebastian has become a somewhat well-known symbol of queerness and homoeroticism, largely due to a pattern emerging within renaissance art that depicts him as scantily clad and in varying states of ecstasy at the moment of his initial martyrdom. This installation takes this somewhat surface-level association and draws personal parallels between the hagiography of Sebastian and a lived experience as a queer person living in the United States, using self-portraiture and poetry to encourage the viewer to interact with the piece and to draw these connections themselves. This work takes several artistic interpretations of the same story and seeks to work against the dehumanizing process of becoming a symbol, be it that of the saint or that of the caricature, and create a unique, intentional, and personal connection with the viewer.

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