I love dick

With my new set of work, I am exploring my experiences as a gay man through painting. What it means to truly be myself, and the way I viewed myself since coming out. Religious cues are hinted throughout my older pieces, much of it inspired by baroque art and it’s cotton candy like visuals that hold grotesque subject matter. As an artist, I’ve never been attracted to the idea of displaying my art as something extremely serious, and so I want to embrace my humor and sass in my paintings. The topics I choose are of course very intense, serious, and not always as humorous as my viewers would assume. I can confront serious matters such as society’s resistance to accepting the full spectrum of human sexuality and still find ways to laugh about it within my painting practice. This really pushes my thought process and motivates me to work and to love what I do, and is also an insidious way of influencing a change in the mindsets of my viewers. In some sense I guess I’m trying to de-escalate the intensity of my subject matter by making it over-the-top and humorous. Perhaps this will encourage my audience to lighten up and find ways to still laugh despite the hardships in life. Zodiac influences have influenced my recent works, pushing me to put more thought into my pieces. Some of my influences for this body of work include Daniel Jaen, Kehinde Wiley, and Lisa McCleary. Daniel’s openness to explore and display male nudity in the gay community with graphic figures was an immediate attraction. WIley’s portrayal of the male gaze on the male body, references to religious imagery, and use of decorative floral patterns are inspiring for me. Lisa McCleary’s work contrasts the ridiculousness of sexting with pieces hyper-realistic images of the body to talk about the disconnects in contemporary sexuality and exchanges of intimacy. Both of these artists encourage me to pursue these formal methods and this content without restraint as I develop my BFA work.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art498/1069/thumbnail.jp