Maturity Original Painting

Oil on canvas Comes with certificate of authenticity    The piece is called “Maturity”, it is the final painting in a series called “Men With Crowns”, it is an allegorical piece about the author coming to terms with his sexuality and at the time, choosing to suppress his identity as a gay man. The subject in the painting is “Christian Hamm'' and is distorted to look like melting ice cream. The pastel colors and subject are used to represent innocence and also to be as enticing as possible. His skin is purposefully smoother than the textured background to be even more enticing. The cherry on top represents a loss of innocence, as in popping the cherry - in the case of the artist this means admitting, or from his perspective, submitting, to homosexuality. Being raised in a conservative household, the artist represents his choice to suppress his homosexuality by depicting his desires as something he’d rather allow to melt away than to potentially disturb his innocence. The white in the eyes of the subject represent his fear of the soulless nature he’d been raised to believe was inherent to homosexuality. Later, when the author had come to terms with his sexuality, he found himself in a cascade of violent and abusive relationships which reinforced the messaging he’d been conditioned to believe since childhood - that homosexuality was a sin and he’d be punished for following it. In a manic episode, he tore his paintings and this is one of the few that survived.  Having since sought help and settled into a loving relationship, the artist chose to display “Maturity” as a scar from one of the darkest points in his life to share his story of humility and perseverance.