Little Men
Shane Golby

Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.
-Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, A.D. 524

The works in the series Little Men were conceived in anger. At the age of 40 I admitted who I really was, as far as sexual orientation was concerned, only to discover that I had become an outcast. Before ‘coming out’ I had been accepted as a single male. As an admitted homosexual male, however, I found myself whispered about, joked about and even vilified by some members of the public.

During Alberta’s Centennial Year the same-sex marriage issue came to the fore and, much to my dismay and frustration, I found my ‘bedroom’ and my very existence as a human being scrutinized and questioned by various levels of Government, Church groups, and the population at large. This issue has profoundly impacted me on both personal and artistic levels; challenging me to confront how I wish to be perceived as both a man and as a member of the community at large, and how I wish that perception to be portrayed.

While the art works in the series Little Men were inspired by, and often make reference to, the Gay Marriage debate as discussed on both local, provincial and national levels, in the process of creation the works have moved beyond anger and reaction to explore various facets of the gay experience ranging from politics to pornography; love to lust; acceptance and discrimination…and the nature of beauty itself. The mixed-media works which form the series Little Men are thus records both of a historical moment in Canadian Society and fragments of personal experience. They are reflections on fear and celebrations of beauty in all its forms.

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don’t love anybody.
-Rita Mae Brown, 28 August 1982

- S. Golby

Exhibition date: May 17 – June 16, 2007

gallery   Toni Latour   Jackson 2bears