Southern Values, Sweet Sacrament Divine, The Hudgens Center for Art and Learning, Duluth, Georgia, 2020
Gay’s monumental mural Sweet Sacrament Divine (2020) is the show’s focal point. It’s rooted in Gay’s memories of growing up in Atlanta and Dallas, Georgia. It features the artist’s invented mythological half-human, half-animal “Devouts” in minty green and emerald silhouettes against a pink wall filled with floral imagery. An image of cult leader Jim Jones, sporting sunglasses, looms large in the center. He leaps over a Devout driving a 1970s car as he flees another Devout. For Gay, it’s “a kind of satire on the cult-like following of Christian religion in the South and a kind of retribution in terms of how religion has been used to demonize and manipulate women.” The horned, dark-skinned Devouts appear marginalized but ever-present and active, creating a new narrative. Indeed, not only do they chase Jones, they gather like the three graces beneath a representation of Gay’s home church emblazoned with three crosses. They stand in another trio eating watermelon (the inspiration for the pink-and-green palette, perhaps, and another staple Southern food often deployed as a racist trope). In the upper-right corner, the marquee sign reappears, this time reading: “GOD BLESS THE SOUTH.” Tellingly, its arrow points down and beyond the composition’s bounds. - Rebecca Brantley, ArtsATL
