A wayward casta painter wearing a matador jacket has landed on the shores of La Isla de la Sirenas; he is certain he will fail at his duties in rendering the mermaids on canvas or determine if they represent a new caste in the order of races.
Aaron Richmond-Havel, Statement and Bio, PHOTONola 2024
The Sissies of Southtown Rehearse Their Production of The Butcher of Las Sirenas In A Time of Plague
artist statement:
Prologue/Warning: This is all as true as you want it to be. Scene 1: a cast of wild queerdos desperate for some activity in the midst of a world-wide quarantine respond to a call to pose with little context. The photographer asks: are you comfortable exposing yourself for this photo? “Sure, should my dick fall to the left, or the right?” A meta-narrative: some fags and their friends between revolutions are pretending to stage a theatrical play in the 1980s based on a universally unread novella set in the 18th century Caribbean. Scene 2: A wayward casta painter wearing a matador jacket has landed on the shores of La Isla de la Sirenas; he is certain he will fail at his duties in rendering the mermaids on canvas or determine if they represent a new caste in the order of races. Scene 3: A lost artist in the desert is watching YouTube videos of traditional wives' hobby how-tos and spends days making a poorly grouted mosaic of sea-shells bought from dusty thrift stores. The closing curtain: Jordie Cervical (protagonist) tries to convince city council not to grant King William neighborhood a historic designation, knowing it would be the death toll for his dilapidated Victorian mansion that houses The Pansy Den; he too might soon extinguish from a mysterious illness going around the local bathhouses.
bio:
a.r. havel is a multidisciplinary artist originally from San Antonio, Texas. There, in collaboration with radical theater ensemble Jump-Start performance Co. he learned a community-activated form of artistic practice. Before moving to New Orleans, he attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts. With an emphasis on set building and stage-craft, a.r. havel’s visual fantasies highlight the inherent pleasure, sacredness, filth, and camp performativity of queerness. He is currently enrolled in a Masters of Fine Art program out of the University of New Mexico and will pursue continued studies in Visual Cultures.