Artist: Sarah Horn
Title: Becoming an LGBTQ Ally
Medium: Watercolor and Ink on Paper
Unframed Dimensions: 18 x 24 inches
Framed Dimensions: 19 x 25 x 1 1/8 inches
Price: $600
Artist Statement: What I found surprised me in Dialogue's articles around topics that are personal and important to me like faith, autism, depression, and even suicidal ideation. I started to see a pattern emerge about the struggles individuals and families living within the LGBTQ community experience as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Increased rates of depression, suicide, loneliness, judgement. All of which are counterintuitive to the Zion we are hoping to establish. I was privileged to create this painting for the first Gather Conference, a Christ-centered support for Latter-day Saint LGBTQ individuals and those who love them in September 2023. "Becoming an LGBTQ Ally" is watercolor and ink on paper offering a visual prayer of the energy, intention, and humility it requires to become a LGBTQ ally. The bright, bold, and abstracted shapes, colors, and line work feel like hope and confusion at the simplicity and complexity of overcoming natural man bias' and comforts. Showing the full spectrum of individuals learning to embrace Christlike love, improve communication and increase emotional intelligence. The use of watercolor is symbolic of the flow service, grace, love, and forgiveness for ourselves and others offers as a bridge to our differences. The black line work tells the stories that help us find similarities with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. The layering of the shapes, colors and line work share the truth in the confusion and beauty that also occurs when we are learning to love individuals as God loves us. Especially as we break through perceptions and execrations created by society and church cultures.
Artist Bio: I'm a multidisciplinary artist creating tangible experiences with God by sharing the unseen world of faith, prayer, and personal revelation. I create with anything and everything from recycled and new mediums to thrifted or found objects in nature to collaborative work with musicians or solo performances to convey the simplicity and complexity of the human experience learning to "let there be Light" within us. Because when we see our Creator, even through the lens of someone else's experiences, we can choose to connect with the beauty and power within ourselves as creators in training.
