Through this collection of works I portray the instinctual masking of personal and sexual identity in the workplace. This is a very personal subject for my partner and myself as he still remains closeted at the age of 37. He’s known who he is since he was a kid he explains to me, yet still his environment has forced him into putting up a hetero masculine facade. Coming out for him would threaten his job security and likely cause him to get laid off. It’s a discussion we often have that goes along the lines of “people in this community won’t do business with a gay man.” Contrasting to my partner’s environment today I find myself in a place where I am encouraged to talk openly about my personal life without holding back. I find that in my current environment we have forgotten and moved on from these issues that the majority of rural America continues to face. My work this semester aims to remind my viewer and to create dialogue behind my partner and I’s personal and public relationship. A fleshed out painting done with house paint on segmented drywall portrays a love and tedious labor behind our devotion toward one another. Through domestic materials I push a commonality between my viewer and I regardless of the subject. This first painting is intimate and invitational to my audience. It allows them to become voyeurs, observing the romantic fine detail used to convey love and longing, but just as my partner has to conceal himself, this layer is quickly and instinctively covered by white primer. What took many hours to paint is covered up in the matter of seconds. This simple but controversial act is meant to cause a physical reaction from my viewer. Without explaining the subject I want them to be shocked and appalled questioning the act and mourning over the covered painting. On this primed surface another painting will be done of Joseph in his workplace which conveys his public hetero work persona through a mode of landscape. This painting will ultimately be viewed first. Viewers will observe and glance over the texture beneath the surface layer until they are met with the history of the painting. This experience for my viewer is planned so that they can encounter the landscape as a scene that is mundane and normal along with Joseph’s hetero persona, whilst the relationship behind me is masked to remain normative.
