My Camouflage series depicts queer survival through abstraction and erasure. These self-portraits express agency by obscuring and hiding my body in the frame. Mythology, the landscape, and costuming are tools I use to transform my forty-three-year-old gay male body into monsters and abstract sculptures.
I have worked as a kindergarten teacher for the past twenty years, which means revealing my full queer interests in public could jeopardize my job. The act of transformation in my self-portraits becomes a process of reclaiming power. By hiding my identity and transferring myself into beasts and mythological characters, I find power in showcasing my own desires.
This series was created while in residency at Playa Summer Lake in summer 2024. As someone born in the Portland area and raised in a temperate rainforest along the banks of the Sandy River in Boring, the quiet desolation of the high desert asks me to redefine who I am and what I consider important. These portraits represent me entering into conversation with deeper parts of myself.
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