Mike Kelley (b. 1954)

They See God (Stained Glass Mattress), expresses a manifestation of sexual desire veiled with an idealized representation of Catholicism; the stained glass window. The mattress is an obvious symbol of the corporeal act of sex but Mike Kelley cloaks it in panes of colorful fabric, recalling sacred stained glass windows but subverting this idea with a secular joyful color matrix. In this way Kelley subverts the Church's doctrine of sex only for procreation and the repression of sex for pleasure by the use of its own symbol.