Desire, I Want to Turn Into You — Lauric Mahé-Stephenson

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (2026)

This new piece is a direct continuiation to the Triptychs of Monstrosity (2023), reusing the techniques of digital collage and illustration to transform Greek statues into monstruous and sexual beings. Using statues and historical artifacts found throughout the Greek peninsula, ranging from Athens to Delphi, by way of the Peloponese, the pieces merges different temporalities of ancient Greek history and brings deities and mortal beings together in a celebratory gesture.
UV printed on clear acrylic, with no backing, Desire ressembles a stained glass, in a playful nod to Christian iconography. In a rebellious gesture of reappropriation, the transparency offered by the medium mirrors the holes of the original statues and fills them with stripped down illustrations, both repairing and dismembering these monstruous beings.

A temple or a painted grotto of sorts, the statues are offered a new home where their new configurations can thrive, whilst interacting with one another in a playful manner. The illustrations represent more explicity the suggested sexuality of the statues, and place queer sexuality at the foreground. Desire is liberated and invites the viewer to delve into its warm embrace.

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You – UV Print on Clear Acrylic, 2026