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Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 1999. In this study, the intersection between the changing use and portrayal of the image of Saint Sebastian, and homosexuality, homoeroticism and HIV/AIDS is investigated through use of literary, theoretical, and visual arts materials. Comparisons between the use and portrayal of Saint Sebastian imagery are informed by Halperin's (1995) and Highwater's (1997) gay analyses of Foucault's theories, allowing very recent changes to be addressed and discussed. Their theories of cultural conflict and social repression are also utilised when discussing gay male positions within wider Western society, and the predominantly white Anglo-middle-class gay movement of Australia, North America and Europe. The diversity of art expression and the extent of thematic intent in gay images portraying Saint Sebastian, challenges many stereotypes and presumptions made about gay men, and indeed about the impact of HIV/AIDS upon the gay male community. In this study, a historical survey of images is conducted in order to trace changing intentions for the image and explain its current popularity in the homosexual community. Although Foucault, Halperin and Highwater do not directly discuss Saint Sebastian imagery, their theories allow the images to be analysed within a current social context. Further, they recognise that current cultural identity is dependent upon the influences and traditions of the past. This recognition of the past is an important influence upon contemporary artists who wish to explore the legend of Saint Sebastian, even when referencing recent themes and issues related to HIV.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Teresa of Avila's,visual descriptions in her Life are not simply evocations of her actual mystical experiences, but accounts colored by her concern with and interest in the visual and her exposure to pictures. In turn, her writings were a source for later pictorial iconography in Counter Reformation Europe. Thus, Teresa's written imagery fits into a long iconographic tradition that in itself influenced her descriptions. Her descriptions, in particular, her account of the Transverberation of her heart, were then fed back into the visual arts as various artists interpreted her experiences in order to spread her understanding of God throughout Catholic Europe.