Frontal novice, from the series Hagiography

Working across different media and techniques, from painting and photography to site-specific performances, conceptual artist Ernesto Pujol works with issues of masculinity, mourning, and the individual and collective memory. Pujol’s background and formal education readily informs his body of work. He completed degrees in literature, psychology, and the humanities, but also spent four years as a sequestered monk researching the lives of early hermit-saints before beginning his formal artistic training. This photograph is part of his Hagiography series, in which Pujol dresses himself in various nuns’ habits, interpreting different stages undergone before fully adopting religious vows. Although appearing in a demure and contemplative attitude, the careful pose and makeup suggest that the manifestation of one’s spirituality can be mere artifice. As a self-identified gay man, presenting himself as a nun calls into question the definition and categorization of binary gender roles. By choosing to use photography, a medium that is atypical to religious subjects, Pujol seeks to propose new ways of thinking about the intersections of religion and gender. (“15 Minutes: Exposing Dimensions of Fame,” curated by undergraduate members of Cornell’s History of Art Major’s Society and presented at the Johnson Museum April 16 – July 24, 2016)