On May 1, 2003 George Bush, co-piloted a Navy S3-B Viking fighter plane that landed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln announcing the end of the Iraq war, “Mission Accomplished”. This was one of many staged events of George Bush donning a macho suit. Although these images generally go unquestioned they exert an excruciating impact on gender.
I look to subvert such images and the associated rhetoric by offering a new perspective that both shocks and questions the way such images are devoured by our society. In our image and debate driven culture, political campaigns, (such as George Bush’s 2004 campaign) are rarely won on issues, but rather on spectacular gendered images and rhetoric.
Although gender roles are becoming increasingly flexible and variable, we continue to live in a deeply homophobic and femiphobic culture. Femiphobia, the fear of being feminized, plays out in our patriarchal society’s desire to keep men in power and ward off those who threaten one’s sense of masculinity. It is an anxiety that ripples through society, from presidents to our youth, and energizes men’s struggle to prove masculinity that keeps us pumping more weights at the gym, barking at the driver next to us, and ultimately fighting wars for no other reason than to appear “tough.”
Through the human figure I seek to explore this phobia and how it contributes to the construction of masculine identity and sexuality. My earlier work uses self-portraiture to examine the polarities of gender and the dynamics of male relationships. Men, oftentimes wearing masks, interact with each other on backgrounds that explode with graffiti, advertisements and religious and sexual iconography that exemplify the myriad sources that feed the construction of masculinity.
My most recent work (see Ameridrag) is concerned with the representation of popular figures in a three-dimensional space imbued with phobia. By looking directly at phobia, I hope to rattle linear thought and dislodge preconceptions about gender and sexuality, thus freeing up meaning for a variety of thought patterns to be connected.
