Sprawling in their range of references, the works of artist Alexei Mansour displayed in Becoming a Vessel harnesses the visual grammar of Greco-Roman Antiquity in order to explore the fluid, amorphous nature of queerness and subjective identities. The paintings and drawings exhibited here offer visions not of a static past shrouded in myth and legend, but an exuberant otherworld of symbols that both mirror and transform visual cultures of the classical past into present realities. Rendered in kaleidoscopic color, archetypal figures are set in a backdrop of Arcadian vegetation which frame a Dionysian vision, inviting viewers into the heterotopia that these figures inhabit. Among the multiplicity of bodies and vessels alike, figures intertwine and mirror the once secret works of British artist Duncan Grant (1885–1975) that also appear in the exhibition, adding another layer to the representation of eroticism made visible in queer history. Mansour’s talismanic works offer reminders of the queer homosociality of Antiquity and ask viewers to imagine themselves as corporeal vessels, self-reflective containers filled with their own history. Becoming a Vessel portrays the artist’s personal journey to find a sense of belonging. However, his work emphasizes that this universal voyage has no final destination. Rather, Mansour’s interrogations of sexuality, representation, and identity through symbols and bodies represent these struggles as ongoing transformations. The promise of multiple, fluid ways of being in the world, each coaxing the viewer, and one another, to remember who they once were and imagine who they might become.

Artist statement by Ryan Mitchell
Sharyl Cubero Aguilar & John Anderies, curators