My Queer Identity

My practice predominantly focuses on an exploration of my queer identity, with a particular interest in the negative historical representation of queer people as deviants. As the semester developed I began to explore this idea in relation to the stigma surrounding the title of ‘artist’ in western society. Formally, my practice has predominately focused on digital media and performance as well as performance documentation. I have focused on these material approaches because I do not consider the university studio design to be functional for a productive art practice. Therefore, I have worked mainly at home leading to the creation of works that are often introspective and feature conceptual concerns surround the domestic, the representation of …show more content…
The penis is presented from slightly below and is directed to the top left corner of the frame. The penis appears to penetrate the pink background and interrupts the partially askew diagonal form of the body within the frame. To the side of the scrotum, the dashed outline of a small kitsch comic heart in a vibrant red contrasts the black outline of the overall image. While the impression of reverence for the penis, through its perspective and detail, are manipulated and emasculated through the use of a vibrant pink background and the intimate heart. This creates an absurd image which queers the one masculine symbol of the erect genital. The digital image also recalls the cultural phenomenon of the ‘dick …show more content…
(Williams 2012, para. 3). The aforementioned symbols appear in Lucas’s 1994 4 works: get off your horse and drink your milk, which are c-prints on cardboard measuring 39¾ x 39¾ in. Each work features the square image of a nude headless body seated on the edge of a rounded stool, photographed within an intimate proximity. Positioned over the genitals are, indicated by the title, a bottle of milk and two cookies as though a penis and testicles. The positioning of these objects creates “…the allusiveness of an artifice in which what you see may not be what you get.” (Prince 2014, 106). The implications conveyed in Lucas’s work have influenced my practice as I allude to the object as genitals in What Was He Smoking?. Lucas’s work strongly influenced my own through her representation of the male genitals as a series of readymade objects, in my own practice. Lucas used the body of her partner at the time, Gary Hume, as a rejection of the male gaze and an exploitation of male body for comedy (Fullerton 2016, 50-51). By cropping the subjects head, Lucas has made the work about the body’s relationship with the objects. The focus on the relationship between the object and body has influenced my