Ted May The kiss
oil on canvas
160.2 x 213.5 cm
Unlike Auguste Rodin’s sculpture The kiss (Le baiser) c1882, featuring two figures entwined in an embrace of beauty, understanding and universal acceptance, this adaptation depicts a scene set within a cowshed, symbolic of our House of Representatives.
In portraying ‘an act of defiance’, the players (both of indiscriminate characteristics and gender) act out the scene by hiding their embrace behind a nationally iconic screen of corrugated iron.
It is envisaged that viewers will pause a moment to reflect upon the time when members of the LGBTQI community were forced to meet under clandestine circumstances.
Ted May, 2021