Artist Statement

Derived from the archetypal “jock” figure that populates cultural fantasy and erotic imagination, I appropriate images of wrestling to confront my attraction to traditional masculinity, as well as to describe my experience of marginalization growing up closeted about my sexuality and legal status in the United States. For many of us who grow up closeted, part of a minority group, and likewise othered, assimilation serves as a mechanism for self-preservation and for garnering a sense of acceptance. And so, through my studio practice I strive to overcome the ingrained need to blend in. I create works that harness visibility to explore the intersection between masculinity and marginalized identity, which point to my longing to be noticed, while being afraid to be seen.

Unlike the jock, I associate the wrestler with vulnerability due to the compromising physicality they endure. Perhaps more than other sports, wrestling is one of few contexts in which men and boys are free to exhibit weakness and vulnerability, and I am captivated by the struggle and tenderness evoked by their embrace. Bouts of wrestling exhibit nonstop bodily contact, which is in stark contrast to the limitations that frequently regulate touch between men. Because of the associations among the male athlete, masculinity, and straightness, my idolization of the jock figure embodies a reverence for and betrayal of conventional gender norms and heteronormativity. As a gay immigrant, this attraction to the very system used to oppress my own sense of self worth and personal security creates a sense of tension. The images that I source evoke this tension through their latent eroticism and expressions of suffering. 

My work isolates emotionally resonant moments between men that are at once tender and aggressive, as well as ambiguous and suggestive. I invite reflection on the ways masculinity is represented by employing various forms of contrast, including both faithful representation and abstraction. Careful rendering perpetuates my desire for the male form, while my reduction of the photographic reference image to simplified line and shape, becomes a useful foil to it. The figures in my work are defined by the negative shapes of flat color produced through compositional framing; this alludes to the ways in which our conceptions and performance of gender are similarly relational and defined by their surrounding context. By limiting the paintings to as few as two colors, they reinforce ideas of binary opposition and conflict. Their dichromatic compositions exemplify the color theory concept of simultaneous contrast, which refers to the reciprocal and influential effects that different colors have on one another when in close proximity. Moreover, this relative influence can also be observed in performances of masculinity. While the paintings’ vibrancy draws our attention, their aggressive color contrast makes it difficult to linger in one place for long. This familiar tension mirrors my experience with uncomfortable introspection and is reminiscent of how our conceptions of identity avoid stable definition. Through this practice of obscuring idealized representations of masculinity, I begin to make sense of my relationship to masculinity, sense of self, and feelings of shame.