New Myths And My Religion

Every civilization has its myths and legends. They orient the human experience within fantastic narratives, many of which hold up within our modern culture, being rewoven and retold. Mythology reinforces a societal need for identity and belonging. Tracing treacherous genealogies and exploring established foundational myths reveals that people have always looked for their place in the universe. New Myths And My Religion introduces a new mythology.

In New Myths and My Religion, I generate a story of the world I know. I am someone who was adopted; someone who is queer; someone who grew up Catholic in the Appalachian American South. This body of work has become a visual storybook of my experience. As these compositions actualized, my own symbolic language became an iconography of its own. These gods, what they represent, and these symbols - they may be flexibly deciphered; based on the viewer’s own lived experience, they will have their own subjective associations with what they see. Just like classical mythology, there are so many stories to be told, so many variations and perspectives. What story do you see? What myth will you tell?