Despite our differences my father and I have always used classical art as an unspoken dialogue to communicate and relate to one another. Through our appreciation of the Renaissance masters my father expanded my artistic education and imagination as a child and beyond into my practice as a visual communicator.
In studying those paintings with my father I understood that artists were able to capture cinematic moments that illustrated narrative tension. In my concept for this image, the arrow has been staged the moment before it strikes Roshan’s body to illustrate cinematic suspense for both the subject and the viewer to experience simultaneously.
The arrow is a symbolic reference to enrich the narrative text, it references images such as the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. It also references Apollo’s obsessive love of Daphne by Cupid’s arrow. In these narratives the symbol of the arrow is a catalyst for tragic drama.
Like the paintings of my childhood, these stories of obsession, romance, tragedy I relate to personally. In the case of this image it allegorically represents the moment that I understood that I was a gay man, and the struggle I would go through in the next two years of my life.
