Zak Kalivas

About

SAINT SEBASTIAN, 2022, by ZAK KALIVAS, is an experimental video artwork - composed of film and CGI showcasing a depiction of the early Christian saint being shot numerous times by an arm holding a gun.

Presented on three vertical screens, the video artwork features a highly eroticised CGI render of the saint wearing fetish attire. The figure showcased on the center screen is frozen in the traditional pose of the saint, whilst the camera pans around the subject and moves through the inside of the render. The left and right screen showcase an arm wearing a latex glove with a crucifix wrapped around it, holding a gun. The arm aims towards the saint, where it begins to shoot.

The work explores themes of violence, sexuality, ‘pleasure and pain’ in an age of restriction and personal bondage, with allusion to the exploration of the ‘death of club-culture’ in an era of a pandemic. During historic pandemics, Saint Sebastian served as a holy figure for plagues. This notion focuses on the saint as a collective source of inspiration who was summoned to re-establish the LGBT community during the AIDS epidemic, as the saint has a modern queer significance due to his homoerotic representations.