After two decades, "Unto Us A Child is Born," a same-sex family portrait by well-known gay Michigan artist Carl Demeulenaere, is openly out and proudly on display at the Flint Institute of Arts through Jan. 4, 2015.
The once controversial miniature, originally acquired by the Founders Society for the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1993, was reluctantly, rarely – perhaps even grudgingly – presented for public viewing since its DIA purchase.
Truth be known, "Unto Us" was a highly closeted DIA acquisition.
"The painting," says Demeulenaere, "depicts a male couple who have conceived a child from their love. The 'new Christ child.' A star of Bethlehem shines over the baby's head. Both partners exchange visual vows symbolizing spiritual commitment to a better life for all same-sex-attraction persons.
"The gold brocaded frame suggests transcendental sanction of their mutual respect and determination for fulfillment and a better life. I hope that museum visitors will come to acknowledge through my paintings the standard I've sought to uphold through so many years of personal darkness and infrequent light in my own journey as an artist."
Demeulenaere's Flint Institute of Arts exhibition is titled, "LABYRINTH: The Circuitous Life of A Miniaturist." This meticulous – exacting, perfectionist, masterful – collection is intimately presented on a Title Wall and in seven separate spaces. There are 115 radiant and exacting miniatures, 22 amulets, 17 origami pieces and 12 drawing "correspondences."
Demeulenaere's art, while LGBT timely and contemporary – somewhat reminiscent of gay Magic Realist painters George Tooker and Paul Cadmus – draws on inspiration from Northern and Italian Renaissance masters, French Neoclassical and British Pre-Raphaelite traditions. His many past installations and exhibits have been noteworthy, well-attended and critically acclaimed.
An accompanying FIA brochure says of "LABYRINTH": "Carl Demeulenaere aims to take the viewer on a visual journey, exploring historical, religious and social ideas that he has been engaged with in a personal way. His more recent works focus on life's uncertainty and death's inevitability and bring the viewer full circle from beginning to end."
Of his own journey as a gay man, Demeulenaere says, "Coming from a small and closely-knit family, my philosophies about art and life markedly changed in the early 1990s as a result of the tragic losses of my mother to cancer and several friends to AIDS-related causes. I began doing volunteer work for AIDS research organizations, and as an artist became interested in examining the public's perception of the homosexual community.
"I decided that there was a need to communicate a positive message about my community and to show, in turn, how all communities are universally linked. The legacy of compassion and understanding left to me by my mother and my many lost friends impels me to use my artistic abilities to make an appeal for understanding, tolerance, respect for and between all minorities."
