“[My drawings are] psychologically fraught; they come from a very emotionally ambivalent place. I was concerned that they were going to be these negative, knotty [works]. And so I definitely called [the exhibition]in order to counteract [that] … And then my father died and I was also thinking about being his plus-one, in the sense of a son being a father’s plus-one … he was great but he’s also someone I constantly struggled with. I feel like he was the unspoken audience for a lot of this work.
“Growing up gay in Virginia, I used to draw women [as] princesses; these nine-foot-tall girls with very elaborate, frilly skirts. My parents loved it. I would draw all the time. But then my mother was like, why is he only drawing women? It wasn't even an accusation but my first thought in my head was like, fuck, I need to cover my tracks. So I started putting these obligatory, like, escorts, this one man, to be like, look, I’m drawing men too.
“But I feel like the sexuality has been stripped away from [the nudity in these drawings], in the sense that they’re not necessarily alluring; they’re somehow vulnerable. I also feel like there’s something funny about, like, this guy somehow trying to shape his body in a certain way, this kind of violent act, that’s almost a joke about working out too. Like, ‘This body is going to a certain shape goddammit.
“It’s been interesting to walk around and listen to people. I want people to look at [these drawings] and say ‘Jesus Christ, what is that?’, but also for them to say ‘wow’. I want to create an almost religious spectacle. That’s the great thing about monsters in films: they‘re repulsive and yet you’re drawn to them in this unconscious or maybe conscious identification with them. It’s like, they’re kind of getting away with something you would like to get away with.
“I had a show here in 2005 and as [my father] was walking in I was like, ‘There’s a drawing of you in the show’. It was him lying in a field of ivy and there was this naked, possibly dead adolescent kid. My dad stood next to the drawing all night talking to people. So I was like, I’m going to try and draw him again and see if I have a different reaction to him. It ended up being a memorial piece. But I felt like it was such a dutiful son thing to do.
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