For artists, self-portraiture can be a powerful act of self-reflection. In making themselves the focus of their work, the artist reveals and expresses elements of their identity, on their own terms. They determine gesture, form, light, color, and the inclusion or exclusion of body parts; what we see is something that the artist sees within themselves, an assertion of selfhood and visibility. “It’s a power shift from being defined to defining yourself,” said artist Alannah Farrell. “A reclaiming of identity.” Though the gallery was “above-grade,” cops showed up anyway. Ever the smooth-talker, Leslie greeted them: “Oh hello, officers, are you here to see the show?” The police tried in vain to convince Leslie not to hang the paintings on the walls. “They were so clumsy, they didn’t know what they were doing,” Leslie said. At the end of it, “the police couldn’t do anything. It was painting!” Von Gloeden offers even further proof that gay art is by no means a new phenomenon, just one that has only recently been permitted to see the light. Now, Leslie wants to liberate us from our own puritanism, hatred, and fear. “I just want to tell people they should relax about male imagery and not be so horrified all the time,” he said. “People are nuts.” Historical precedents for queer art renders this priggishness especially odd. “The measure of art education used to be the life class,” he explained. “Now, that’s no longer true. Now, you put a garbage lid on the floor and put cotton balls in it, and that’s high art.”

The self-portraits I make are a way to release my imperfect parts: humorous, rebellious, bold, self-deprecating, disrespectful, and facing uncomfortable truths head-on. I will be the first to admit that I’m a very flawed human. I used to have mixed feelings about self-portraits, but now I’m beginning to think everyone should make them. It’s a power shift from being defined to defining yourself, a reclaiming of identity. And I see parallels with how society is finally awakening to gender and sexuality. It’s not up to society and its many biases to define us. We, as individuals, should define ourselves. verygaypaint(he/they) (Los Angeles, CA) - Nicholas Scheppard and Jenson Titus are comedians-turned-painters and the duo behind Very Gay Paint, a muralist company centered around their own queerness and colorful designs. From comedic skits to vibrant mural artwork, they entertain and inspire their community while emphasizing their own queerness and colorful designs.

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Basquiat's art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique.

And if your date has a problem with the color of your genitals after getting close enough to see them, it probably wasn't going to work out anyway. The piece I selected for my self-portrait is a silicon body cast of my chest being pierced with iron oxidized nails. It is also bound to rebar wires that become ornamental elements of beauty, yet function as a material used to reinforce my body. I am fusing the organic with the industrial as signifiers of transformation and of the self-inflicted violence and modifications my body endures while maintaining its structural capacity to perform. This piece is a part of a larger series of works entitled “Antithesis,” which investigates discourses pertaining to gender identity, identity politics, technology, body dysmorphia, bio-politics, and many other topics that echoe the structure of society. After completing an in-home project for a client that worked for the Santa Monica Pier, Nicholas and Jenson say they were commissioned to create a full-fledged exterior paint mural in honor of Pride Month. “It was our first project on concrete ground,” Nicholas says. “Pride Month is about celebrating a community that has experienced so much darkness,” Nicholas says. “It’s a reminder that we’re resilient yet joyous as we protest the work that still needs to be done.” The flourishing of gay life in the 1970s soon gave way to the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s. “The whole decade was like a nightmare,” Leslie recalled with a shudder. “We were endlessly at bedsides and memorials and cremations. You’re always with friends trying to do something and you can’t do anything. Three people died in our house.” Everything closed down: the baths, the bars. Even the gallery had to close: “No one came anymore,” Leslie said; artists stopped bringing work. “It was such a pall over the city.” Still, it was during this decade, in 1987, that Leslie and Lohman created their nonprofit foundation, which was accredited as a museum in 2016.

Gay Men Paint

All windows now have a default-focused control, and the last focused control in the window is remembered

Championing and celebrating our LGBTQIA+ employees here at TikTok is something we take seriously year-round. As a part of our company-wide Pride celebration, TikTok's very own LGBTQIA+ employee resource group (ERG) PRIDE will be hosting a series of Pride Month events and internal programs, from LGBTQIA+ film screenings to Pride marches, that celebrate the full spectrum of intersectional identity groups throughout Pride Month and Juneteenth. The draggable region for handles no longer gets smaller either, except in dimensions where it must.

Frida Kahlo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈfɾiða ˈkalo]; born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán, now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until a traffic accident at age eighteen, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood hobby of art with the idea of becoming an artist.