Obergefell Vs. Hodges was the Supreme Court case (2015) that legalized same-sex marriage on the federal level in the United States of America. My series based on this court case contains fourteen paintings with the text from the entire ruling laser cut throughout the paintings. The first painting has the text from the Syllabus laser cut into an image of Tori Sission and Shanté Wolfe, the first same-sex couple to get married in Alabama. I consider this piece as showing “contemporary history”. The next four paintings have the Opinion of the Court laser cut throughout images of four couples I personally know who have been able to get married over the past decade due to the changing laws in America. The final section contains nine paintings based on historical references with the four separate dissents from Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito laser cut into them. The main justification for the opposing dissents is that marriage, throughout history, has always been only between a man and a woman. As a means to question the justification within these dissents I paired their text with visual evidence of the acceptance of same-sex unions throughout history from various cultures, religions and time periods. As a whole, this series celebrates the legalization of same-sex marriage as a new positive social agreement in America.
Read the documents laser-cut into Article XVI paintings. | Part I: Obergefell Vs. Hodges series | Part II: Article XVI - Marriage Contracts in America