The people who are in my paintings end up being queer people, women, because that s who I know. Now approaching their 40s and 50s, they are feeding on nearly 30 years of out queer art. Their current work indicates a future still outrageous enough to be called queer and witty enough to be beyond the pale of our straighter cousins. Gay and lesbian artists have always drawn and continue to draw on the popular culture around them. TV, film, fashion, pornography are rifled as source material for dissection and reinvention.
Artists also sample from art history, other artists and other cultures.
While many younger queer artists are cycling through the liberating vagaries of abstract painting and experimental film, others continue to use narrative or documentary structures. Exploring and sampling from old formal structures and concerns are giving rise to new hybrid ones. But the really interesting works that get talked about and have lasting power, embody complex, subtle positioning that undermine attempts to square peg them. They draw on words, images, style and narratives that come out of gay lives, but also out of the myriad cultural influences around them. Historical revisionism through a gay or lesbian lens continues in many artists works.