St. Sebastian (he/him)

LSPS-LC Artist @idle.handcrafts created this potent and revealing sculpture, which happened to come out of the kiln during Pride Month. The artist says of their work:

“As a queer Jew, my borderline-obsession with the Catholic Saint Sebastian might seem odd. Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastian has been my lock screen since I’ve had a smartphone, and, along with this piece, I’ve depicted him over the years in paintings, drawings, and one semi-nude tableau vivant. I think this can be partially explained by the old joke: “the best things Catholicism has given to the world are stained glass windows and BDSM.”

“Saint Sebastian has been a covert queer icon (and the unofficial “saint of the gays”) since at least the 1800s, and queer artists have been depicting him for about as long as there’s been explicitly queer art. Journalist Richard A. Kaye wrote, “Contemporary gay men have seen in Sebastian at once a stunning advertisement for homosexual desire… and a prototypical portrait of tortured closet case.” The miraculous arrows – that puncture but do not kill – serve as symbols of both persecution and penetration, as instruments of both bodily pain and divine pleasure.”

“Honestly, I intended this to be 100% a piece of fetish art, depicting a story that I find engrossing and a form that I find beautiful. Just like the arrows, though, it seems like queer art and queer desire can’t display pleasure without also acknowledging pain. In telling stories of our desire, we are necessarily telling stories of our disenfranchisement and the ways in which, miraculously, we were not killed by it.”

“For more homoerotic, sadomasochistic Saint Sebastian content, please check out the Chicago Leather Archive & Museum’s screening of Derek Jarman’s film Sebastiene (1976). They are showing the film on June 15th, at 7:00 as part of their monthly Fetish Film Forum. Support queer art and queer history, and happy Pride!”