Helios Cisneros

Reverence

Through jewelry and ornamentation, my work investigates visibility and invisibility through my queer experience. My identity as a gay Latinx person informs how I see the world and the content of my work. Being from a mostly white suburb and from a Mormon family background, I had to hide who I am and constantly felt like an outsider. I use abstracted or queered floral forms as ornamentation that I juxtapose with images of male figures. Floral forms have an innate, delicate, beauty that symbolizes fecundity, and inspires attraction. Layering these forms with queer bodies I invite the viewer into a space of appreciation and desire. The natural elements are not explicitly familiar yet are somewhat recognizable, illuminating the idea of queer sexuality’s natural place in the world. The delicate and precious quality of enamel as a material imbues the content of the work with value. I draw the viewer in to content that might seem taboo or unfamiliar as the enamel highlights usually private or invisible imagery with vibrant colors and a jewel-like surface. Jewelry as adornment, worn like a badge with these images, challenges a fairly common queer experience of having to hide one’s truth. I am interested in the synthesis of digital and traditional craft processes, and I use decals of images that I draw digitally and print them onto enamel that coats hand cut metal forms. I multiply and mirror these representations and experiences to make them present, valid, and celebratory, through their repetition.

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