Monday, December 9, 10:00am – 1:30pm, Owen Hall 203 and via Zoom
Lenny KyriaKoulis
Dr. Louise Deroualle, Dr. Brent Skidmore, Dr. Jackson Martin, Dr. Megan Wolfe
The figure in art is one of the most recognizable and accessible points into visual language that has been produced infinitely across geography, culture, and time. It is a direct reflection of human consciousness, allowing a viewer to see the light of humanity within the fixed eyes returning their gaze. A visual tradition that bears cultural significance, narrative, and morality, the figure shoulders the conventions of one’s settings, the ideological priorities and standards of the contemporary. Sculptures of the body are a spectacle, monumentalized as the timelessness of seeing oneself represented persists as long as the work does. As with sociocultural relationships to self, the sculpted figure suffers the scrutiny of gendered philosophy. When the artist makes deliberate choices on how to express gender and sexuality in a piece, they are effectively canonizing a particular ideology, whether through ratification or rejection. Idealized notions of gender, modesty, and intimacies are mirrored back. Public display and subsequent reception of certain works immortalizes what society should deem as acceptable. Sculpting a figure with queer tone inherently sustains a sociopolitical statement that queerness is worth the radical act of taking up physical space in public, to be spectated without shame or censorship. This body of work uses clay as a celebration of queer bodies and an examination of the gentleness and eroticism of the masculine figure. Through ceramic figural sculpture, connection and liberation from gender ideology can be explored, highlighting and canonizing the immutable and persisting beauty of queerness in all shapes and forms.