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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.