Hyacinthus Chooses The Monster

Hyacinthus Mesmerized, 2023, 14.5” x 11.5”

hand-stitched embroidery and punch needle with dmc thread.

“If we train young people to read insult, hostility, and prejudice into every interaction, they may increasingly see the world as hostile to them and fail to thrive in it.”. -- Helen Pluckrose 

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity -- and Why This Harms Everybody. 

Hyacinthus Mesmerized is inspired by an Ancient Greek vase painting from the 5th century B.C. depicting the youth Hyacinthus with a Swan. The ancient Greeks asked questions about the nature of truth and what it means to be a good person, but this 21st-century Hyacinthus has much more to contend with. Here, he represents the youth who thinks he must sacrifice himself (his Self) for what he sees as a higher calling. Images within point to the pressures of identity and conformity, portrayed by a monster threatening to consume him, and surveillance cameras always watching how he performs. On each side of him is a partial pyramid representing the "hierarchy of oppression", halved to symbolize Hyacinthus' split psyche, which is cut off from the real beauty and truth of the world/Universe. The Swan symbolizes the profound mystery and elegance of his being  - his soul - here subjugated into his unconscious shadow.