It does sound like quite a transformative orientation for the new work?
I think you could say that it reflects the chaos and the calm, a constant juxtaposition of opposites, which is the experience of fostering. There is a boldness to the work, a combining of character and colour, the idea of the world being disjointed, the world being reflected in opposing forces, and I am trying to bring those forces together. It is a direct reflection of the experience of fostering.
How does the question of homophobia emerge in the work?
I experienced direct homophobia during one of the placements. I was in receipt of homophobic slurs, homophobic attitudes, although I would say that I don’t think this person was actually homophobic, rather they were naive, angry, and were using the slurs as a weapon.
It did make me think about what it is to be a gay man in Northern Ireland, living in a society which is innately homophobic, that is always dealing with what it means to incorporate gay people into the surrounding community, its structures, whether that’s the political structures, and the legacy of homophobia and homophobes within them, or just in society more generally.
I was asking myself lots of questions about what it means to be a gay man who grew up in a period of time in society where being gay was extremely problematic. You had to live in shame, you had to live in these quiet, dulled down spaces.
With regards to fostering there was a sense that I was challenging the idea whether or not a single gay man could be a foster parent. But, when I was in a situation where I was receiving homophobic abuse in my home, a place which is supposed to be a safe space, my safe space, how do you deal with that? It was incredibly toxic and quite frightening and required me to find ways of handling a very difficult situation.
And part of that was through your art?
Well that was certainly part of the process. I would take the information in, or the experiences in, reflect on them, process the feelings, regurgitate it a bit and then I would produce material which eventually ended up in an exhibition of drawings at Queen Street Studios in 2023. That was a series of drawings where characters contained the word “Faggot” within them because that was the word which was used at me. I had to ask myself how do I “hold” that word, how do I process it, how does it impact me.
And then I created two bodies of work, “Life on Earth” which was entirely chaotic, a blending of worlds and cultures, of storms, whatever I could find to illustrate chaos, and “Life in Space” which represented the calm. It was very playful, quiet, serene.
How did this exhibition end up in the Imagine Festival?
I knew Mags O Kane from the arts community in Lisburn. We had a meeting and I went through my ideas, the question of fostering, the ideas around being a single male, a gay man, and why that should not be a barrier to fostering and she was very supportive and so this new exhibition will be part of the Imagine Belfast Festival. There are 15 new collage pieces in the exhibition and it will run through the week of the festival.
Information about the Garden of Eden exhibition can be found at the link below
