Paradise Drawing Suite ( 2023 - 2025 )

Paradise is a collection of 13 colored pencil portraits on colored paper. Within each drawing, multiple sources are used to create a complex, yet unified, whole.

Expanding the idea of the portrait and the idea of masculinity in portraiture, each image centers a depiction of a beautiful man from the past. This figure is adorned with elements of nature and set within a fantastical landscape. These elements become extensions of the individual, culminating in an ephemeral portrayal. In Paradise, what has previously been unseen about these men becomes visible.

That which was secret and hidden is now celebrated. In this way, these drawings are deeply personal reflections of my own transformation.

The drawings are colorful, seductive, and surprising. Mushrooms become crowns, trees become earrings, and men wear octopi as headdresses and flowers as neckties. And, rare for work that falls under the surreal, the portraits are exuberant celebrations of queerness.

Paradise represents my desire to create a new visual history for myself and others, where queerness isn’t aberrant, but a beautiful part of nature.