Artist Statment
My art is based on concepts of queer nostalgia, horror, class, camp, and humor, with an emphasis on influences from films. I am always creating challenges for projects in which I combine these subjects to weave my identity, interests, and upbringing together.
As for my most recent work, Serial Sissies, these plates focus on my colorful rendition of narcissistic fictional queer serial killers within horror/thriller cinema. Narcissism itself can be quite horrifying, but it also has different contexts within communities and cultures. I chose to focus on four films with queer serial killers who have a multitude of vain reasons for their homicidal acts. In Our Paradise (2011), Vassili goes on an angry sex working murder spree because youth is escaping him while his vanity morphs into a vicious monster. From Knife+Heart (2018), we see a character who cannot cope with past or current trauma from hate crime and pursues revenge on beautiful gay porn stars. Death on the Beach (1991) tells an egotistical closeted queer story through intertwined extreme manipulation, suppression, and oppression. Whereas, Hide and Go Shriek (1988) leads the viewer on a dark, yet confusing, death path of a love sick self-absorbed delusional blundering murderer. Each of these films' themes touch on gay egomania in some form or fashion, not to be praised or celebrated, but to be observed and studied. Throughout each plate, knives are present, as an allegory for the harm a penis or toxic masculinity can cause. I have artistically paused the films, so that the viewer can take a moment to look at the characters, since the characters have spent plenty of time staring at themselves.
My art is based on concepts of queer nostalgia, horror, class, camp, and humor, with an emphasis on influences from films. I am always creating challenges for projects in which I combine these subjects to weave my identity, interests, and upbringing together.
As for my most recent work, Serial Sissies, these plates focus on my colorful rendition of narcissistic fictional queer serial killers within horror/thriller cinema. Narcissism itself can be quite horrifying, but it also has different contexts within communities and cultures. I chose to focus on four films with queer serial killers who have a multitude of vain reasons for their homicidal acts. In Our Paradise (2011), Vassili goes on an angry sex working murder spree because youth is escaping him while his vanity morphs into a vicious monster. From Knife+Heart (2018), we see a character who cannot cope with past or current trauma from hate crime and pursues revenge on beautiful gay porn stars. Death on the Beach (1991) tells an egotistical closeted queer story through intertwined extreme manipulation, suppression, and oppression. Whereas, Hide and Go Shriek (1988) leads the viewer on a dark, yet confusing, death path of a love sick self-absorbed delusional blundering murderer. Each of these films' themes touch on gay egomania in some form or fashion, not to be praised or celebrated, but to be observed and studied. Throughout each plate, knives are present, as an allegory for the harm a penis or toxic masculinity can cause. I have artistically paused the films, so that the viewer can take a moment to look at the characters, since the characters have spent plenty of time staring at themselves.
