Artist Statement
As a queer woman painting gay men, my gaze is neither a direct reversal of the male gaze nor a complete denial of it. The sexualization and voyeurism is still there however it is done consciously, with the consent of my subjects, and marked with the intimacy, understanding, and humor that is unique to the queer-on-queer gaze.
In the tradition of 19th and 20th century French pastoral paintings, the figures in my paintings appear half-clothed in grassy, bacchanal-esque outdoor settings. My references are photos I’ve taken of friends and acquaintances during Pride celebrations in San Francisco, where I lived for ten years, as well as at queer gatherings in Los Angeles, where I now reside. My focus for these paintings begins with the interactions between men taking place alongside yet indifferent to the presence of women. I’m fascinated by how this triangulation of gazes, including my own, displaces the desire canonically imbued in artist-subject relationships. With the historical cross-gender gaze being rooted in objectifying desire, my paintings question what moments of intimacy and insight can be uncovered by looking subjectively at a subculture I am entangled with yet do not directly identify with. Further, my work questions why a queer-on-queer gaze is less socially acceptable when it crosses the boundaries of gender.
Many of the figures in my paintings are depicted with turned backs and obscured faces. In the absence of facial distinction, I seek to highlight how body language and material objects reveal markers of identity, and how this tangled mass of bodies comes to represent a nuanced version of community. I utilize unnatural, brightly colored bodies to emphasize the performativity of the scene while offering figures the individuality that faces would otherwise provide. My perspective is often from the ground looking up. In direct contrast to an artist like Degas towering over his ballerinas, I am interested in insights gleaned from more intimate, relatable vantage points. My paintings celebrate the empowerment of a subculture adjacent to my own, while also interrogating its exclusivity.
