Screen Printing

Vincent Van Gogh Self Portrait Screen Print

This technique used clay to paint on the different tones of layers to be printed.

Performative Queerness

The message for this piece was the idea that women are encouraged to pretend to be gay for the pleasure of men.

I have two parts of the piece where the women are facing the viewer looking for approval. I would say that these images are male gaze influenced. The term male gaze is a cinematic term where the view point of a piece comes from a usually heterosexual cis man, where there may be scenes that linger on the beauty of a woman rather than the beauty of a man (i.e. if you have ever seen a pan up shot of a woman starting with her legs moving across her body to finally her face, that’s an example of the male gaze}.

The typography where it says “I know what boys like” and “Just the right amount of wrong” is referring that men who enjoy “wrong” things in a sexual manner, the “wrong” in this case is sexuality that exists between two women.

I made this piece because I was annoyed at the idea that women only experience sexual attraction to other women to please men, as this is often the conversation over bisexual/pansexual/omnisexual's validity since I was a kid. I would hear “You’re only bisexual to get attention from guys!” often, as though the label of being bisexual in itself is a sexual tactic to attract guys instead of a generalized concept that encompasses a spectrum of human sexuality. Being bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual is real. To experience sexuality is fluid for a lot of people, to others not so much, but women are not pretending to be gay to please men. So the idea of men having women kiss in media, to perform queerness in order to arouse a man’s gaze is frustrating as it is never shot to encourage the idea this is just the woman’s sexuality.

Father John Misty Poster

The image of the two in the background is Father John Misty and his wife from the music video I love you, Honeybear. The image to bottom white ratio was inspired by polaroid photos.

The typography is tattoo inspired for the “Lovers”, and the type for the bottom is inspired by the film noir movie Body Heat. I felt they paired well together and fell in love with the “O” being a perfect circle for the bottom text.

The location One Eyed Jacks is a real place, but I dedicated this piece to my partner at the time. One Eyed Jacks is a location in the tv show Twin Peaks. They introduced me to Father John Misty, and Twin Peaks so I wanted to make this piece for them. They also had French heritage so the idea of it being in New Orleans was perfect. The date was our Anniversary.