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Comment by Kyle Patnaude on May 29, 2013 at 10:31pm

"In Nominie Patris"
2013

How long do you hope for complete absolution? How long do you wait? Hoping and waiting under a tree out of season, sitting and passing through time incalculable for that deliverable day where perhaps Godot will come. And like Estragon unto Didi, “who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can’t tell them to you?” (Beckett 1.150)

The works comprising In Nomine Patris, redolent of Catholic iconography, are personal narratives of biblical archetypes transformed. As God the Father and that of the Son, the characters are recast for the tragedy of the father and that of the lamenting son. In November of 2012, my father and creator, was taken from me in a fatal motorcycle accident. While these works are my travails and subject of grief, the substrate of these works is a much more abstruse narrative of a struggle towards filial absolution.

The iconography I have used is a pairing of the dualistic characters of the Catholic church and the ecclesial qualities of Harley Davidson biker culture. While clearly separate and distinct, both factions hold deep reverence for their individual icons, and ideologically homogeneous in their contempt for homosexuality. The question presented by this work confounds that position in that the dichotomy of these fraternal groups conflate with the integration of a queer-machismo.

The consistent thread throughout this body of work is that of the “non est” or “not of.” While the Father is not of the Son and the Son is not of the Father, each are two and yet as one. As a gay man and son of a strong male father figure, there is a constant struggle of being of the father and yet, “non est.”