Pansies
Pansies begins with quiet resistance: a man, turned away, surrounded by blossoms once meant to wound. His body is bare but not offered; the lifted throat and averted gaze hold a small, stubborn pride. The embroidered flowers do not hide him; they honour him. Each stitch carries tenderness into old language, threading insult into beauty, shame into bloom.
In this stillness, the pansy reappears—no longer a mark of scorn but an emblem of endurance. Leaning back into his embroidered halo, he seems both guarded and radiant, held by the very thing that once named him. The petals whisper of those who were called less and lived otherwise, turning the weight of words into a quiet, enduring light.
This piece is based on Richard, Texas 1963 taken by Danny Fitzgerald. He and his partner, Richard Bennett, ran Les Demi Dieux studio.
