Arts and Entertainment

---

Frank Pietronigro -- Artist

EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
Poster in celebration of Lesbian and Gay Pride

GAY AND LESBIAN AMERICAN PORTRAITS

Frank Pietronigro's series of Gay and Lesbian American Portraits juxtaposes embracing football players, gay military lovers and dignified lesbians alongside basic American iconography such as the eagle, apple pie and the American flag. This series offers a realistic perspective of lesbians and gays as "the boy and girl next door" and equates a gay and lesbian identity as basic to American culture as mom's apple pie.

Images of non-stereotypical and non-objectified homosexuals boasting integrity, humor, honor and majesty serve as a refreshing antithesis to the right wing's futile perpetuation of a negative lesbian and gay identity. By contrast, Frank Pietronigro's portraits express the positive personal attributes every American can aspire to in the midst of personal repression, adversity, violence and crisis.

Brian Sampson, Director of State Of The Art Gallery, a San Francisco gallery, states, "Frank believes that people will live up to the expectations placed upon them and it is the goal of his current work to present lesbians and gays in the context of positive rather than negative images. This artist realizes that Americans are subjected to enough negative pictures of the gay community. By contrast, Frank offers works of art which communicate the affirming side to being human so that, as a community, lesbians and gays have another opportunity to experience images of their personal affirmation, hope and integrity. His works invite the viewer to connect with those attributes which, when extended to one another in community, help all of us through crisis."

This feature is being sponsored by:

---