“Palestine Oh Palestine Papa Mama What Blankets to Cover All of Us” 

Artist’s Statement, Stephen Mead:

“Grade School Sissy Boy Unprepared for all the Incoming Hate” and “High School Sissy Boy Still Reeling from all the Incoming Hate” are from a series of three montages, “self-portraits” of my past selves incorporating standard grade school/high school annual “for-the-family” shots, mixed with older 110 photos I took a few decades ago incorporating the farm, and elements of it, I grew up on.  I felt they fit the theme since globally, unfortunately, so many LGBTQ+ people of all ages still battle stigma, shunning and worse.

“Palestine Oh Palestine Papa Mama What Blankets to Cover All of Us”, another digital montage is a visceral reaction to the genocide, born from a passion of feeling helpless/overpowered yet nevertheless wanting to “do something” to express empathy and bare witness. The blankets juxtaposed with the rubble, remain emblems of hope while also exploring the painful erasure of a culture amid the rage and sorrow brought on by the fact that authoritarianism continues to exist even here in the 21st Century when I have hoped for so much better from humanity.

Resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI figures and allies before Stonewall, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/ ,Stephen Mead is a retiree whom, throughout his employment still found time for creativity.Occasionally he even got paid of this. Currently he is trying to sell his 40-year backlog of unsold art,https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/stephen-mead