The Handsome & The Holy (2008-2010): I am interested in the play between queer desire and the construction of gender identity as seen alongside my religious upbringing. This series of work attempts to catalog the influential, yet seemingly paradoxical, figures in my personal history.
As a queer artist, I use self-portraiture and vignettes to explore the image of myself as the ideal man. These drawings and paintings are of the specific men, and images of masculinity, that I personally identified with as a child. Whether they were dapper classic-movie stars, iconic masculine types like ‘Prince Charming,’ male relatives, or part of 80’s pop culture, these figures occupied my thoughts along with the heroic images of saints from my Catholic education. As an adult, these figures represent an unfulfilled and fanciful version of myself.
