Christopher N. Ferreria

SEMPER FIDELIS (2013) is an homage to and conceptual portrait of a dear friend who succumbed to cancer in 2013. A former Marine, a published writer, and a gay man living with HIV, Deke embodied the contradictions of gender and sexual identity that define modern queer experience. In these kaleidoscopic photo abstractions, I wanted to evoke the pageantry of gay male identities, the military, and Baroque aesthetics in the organic and cloud-like forms found in Deke's collection of undergarments.