"SIC TRANSIT NOS GLORIA MUNDI (So Goes Our Earthly Glory)" by Rob Moler (Original Painting)

Like a mirror held to one’s face, my male figurative work with “THE LATIN SERIES” reflects the struggle between human aspiration and the transitory nature of human existence. My themes include the sensuality of the flesh, the pain of broken relationships, the injustices of homophobia, the hypocrisy within the Christian tradition, and the shallow nature of the male psyche. Like the artisans of antiquity, I have chosen the autonomous male nude to express the collective human condition, an ideal image projected throughout the ages but never quite realized. It is within his “vulnerable virility” that we make our own cognitive connections with the inevitable process of aging, dying and death. I usually incorporate some sort of mask or substitute an object to cover the face of the subject to lift him onto a symbolically higher level of self-awareness and consciousness. By masking the figure, the internal male psyche rather than the individual physical portrait is emphasized which brings further content to the painting.

I am drawn to surrealism as it depicts a world where time is meaningless and gravity does not rule. In my surreal landscapes, objects are possessed by the spirits of positive and negative emotions or are carried by my little hummingbird messengers to add further depth to the story. Hopefully my work will connect emotionally with viewers, encouraging them to unmask these objects to discover their spiritual core and find personal meaning within.

“SIC TRANSIT NOS GLORIA MUNDI” was created as a visual response to contemporary homophobia. “Pansy” is a word often used as a homophobic slur to suggest that a gay person is as weak as a flower. Actually, the opposite is true. The pansy is one of the toughest plants in the garden, thriving in the harshest of environments and even blooming in the snow. The face of the pansy also wears a ferocious scowl as a warning to winter. Just as the LGBTQ+ community has adopted the term “queer”, so should it embrace “pansy” as a positive descriptor rather than as a negative, connecting it to strength, perseverance and self-worth. I believe this mental connection of personal power is one of the keys to fighting homophobia.