7 Queer Artists Who Are Breaking the Industry Standard
| 04/28/19
Angal Field
Photographer
Whether lounging along the Pacific coastline or cradled within cluttered New York apartments, photographer Angal Field's cast of their queer and trans friends is held by a tender gaze. One subject, in a work titled Jos that exhibited at Field's debut solo, appears reclining shirtless below a colorful clothesline. A warm, sunlit glow lends the image an intimate feel, as if daydreamed into existence. Anchored by self-portraits documenting their own transition, Field's compositions are a compass for the many ways of existing within a body. "I'm interested in the mythos of the coastline, as a point of epic departure and homecoming, as it dovetails with a history of queer cruising," they say. "My artistic practice is founded on intimacy, consent, and collaboration." Field is also a dab hand with a pen, having been published in The New York Times, and they see filmmaking as the confluence of their verbal and visual efforts. They are currently working as a stills photographer on the set of an Eliza Hittman production as they prepare to enter an MFA program in film production. -- Coco Romack
Richard Kennedy
Experiential Composer
Richard Kennedy finds the most beauty in motion, sound, building new queer worlds, and decolonizing the idea of what it means to be a performance artist. Kennedy, whose work has long straddled the worlds of nightlife and fine art, is mostly concerned with "the intersection of composition, choreography, and directing," spanning projects like their movement workshop "FREECESS" at the Museum of Modern Art's "PopRally" series in February and a grand opera, HIR, which will debut as part of The Shed's inaugural "Open Call" on May 30. In July, the artist will choreograph work for a film project at Open Forum Berlin, and debut the first act of their next opera, Touch of Elegance (in collaboration with Christopher Argodale), later this year. Through music and movement, Kennedy hopes to emancipate "The Other Diva" and create "opportunities for marginalized artists" that look "beyond the cultural centers of coastal America to broaden the conversation, thus creating a truly dynamic American dialogue." -- Rose Dommu
Shannon Finnegan
Multidisciplinary Artist
"I think a lot about how we can move access out of the realm of logistics and into the realm of creativity and human relationships," says artist Shannon Finnegan. "I am often asking myself, 'What do I experience living in my disabled body? Which experiences are shared by other disabled people? Which are shared by non-disabled people? How can I communicate my experiences in ways that create points of connection?'" These questions have inspired works like Museum Benches, a response to the difficulty of navigating museums for disabled bodies, an installation for disabled club-goers called Anti-Stairs Club Lounge; and the in-progress Alt-Text as Poetry, a series on digital accessibility examining how blind people access visual art. "[The disabled audience is] funny, vibrant, and nuanced. Mainstream culture never treats us that way or shows us a real vision of ourselves. We have to do that for each other." -- Rose Dommu
Salman Toor
Painter
"I paint to amuse myself and my friends," Salman Toor says. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Toor mostly paints scenes you could find in the life of any queer Brooklynite living paycheck to paycheck. In a work from his third solo exhibition, "Time After Time," at New York's Aicon Gallery, a crowd of friends dance in a living room listening to music on a laptop. (It's Whitney, he notes.) In another, a single tear streams down the eye of a man sitting in a sofa chair, while another man consoles him. Toor's work celebrates the "casual-seeming liberties" that are as hard-won as they are vulnerable. In one piece, a trio of young friends clink wine glasses on a couch, "babbling away their weekend woes and despairing over the effects of Trump's Muslim ban on their now-liberated, now-jeopardized personal lives," he notes on Instagram. For Toor, every interaction is a microcosm -- it just so happens that these microcosms cast brown faces and immigrants, first and foremost. -- Fran Tirado
Troy Michie
Visual Artist
For Yale-trained artist Troy Michie, collage is as much about tearing apart -- a photo, a fraught idea -- as it is creating a cohesive picture from the tatters. His latest work meditates on camouflage and the contentious symbol of the United States-Mexico border fence through the lens of the highly racialized zoot suit, the flamboyant and oft-striped style popularized in the 1940s by Black and Latino men. "This project came out of an urgency to negate the glaring misrepresentation and language used in the 2016 presidential election that criminalized Mexican-American communities in Texas," he says. Michie, who was born and raised in El Paso, approaches his Tacuche series of garments -- which refers in Spanish to a bundle of rags -- as collage, too: Each piece is a jacket comprised of various objects and clothing fragments. This month, the Whitney Biennial-featured artist's work can also be viewed at The Shed in New York and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. -- Coco Romack
Huang Jiaqi
Photographer
Shortly after his partner passed away in 2017, photographer Huang Jiaqi posted a eulogy on Instagram: "After I met you when I was 17, I was always posing as a grown up. But, in the end, after all these years, I realize we were just two little kids." His partner was Ren Hang, the legendary artist with whom he collaborated for eight years in Beijing. Huang continues his work in Hang's footsteps, largely documenting his fashion-forward editorials alongside odd selfies -- like one with the head of a fish taped over his mouth, on IG. "The selfie is how I feel about my life, how I'm healing myself from depression," Huang says. Though his photos are playful, irreverent, and erotic, he and his art are still growing up, and mental health is part of that maturation. "I was a survivor. I built a wall I called 'brave,' but I just realized it should feel more about life. 'Brave' is not the only thing there is." -- Fran Tirado
Jody Paulsen
Artist and Designer
Jody Paulsen's work is just as nice to touch as it is to view. Utilizing the nostalgia-rich material of colorful, fuzzy felt, Paulsen's large-scale collages are created by cutting, collecting, sorting, and reassembling these felts ad infinitum. Relationships and heartbreak are a theme throughout his work; the weaving textures and shapes almost seem to meander through the labyrinth of adulthood the same way we do. "I make art for as many people who bother to look at my work or attend my shows. I am equally interested in trying to establish a dialogue with people who are almost entirely disengaged with art," says Paulsen, who believes fiercely in accessibility to art. Earlier this year, he finished up his second solo gallery exhibition in his native Johannesburg, and his most recent presentation took place at The Armory Show in New York in March. -- Fran Tirado
