About 15 years ago, My artwork was exhibited in a Chicago gallery, I was told by the gallery owner, “Some people won’t buy your artwork, if they know you’re gay.” I was doing, in part, more design orientated abstracts at the time, so I simple did a series where I put one stenciled letter in each piece, when laid out in order & together it said, “A Queer Boys Story”. I decided then, enough was enough, no more in & out or hiding!
This piece is a throwback to some of my earliest paintings, some 35 years ago. My teens were fraught with deep confusion, angst & turmoil as I struggled to come to terms with who I was. The mid 1980s in my early 20s I had finally begun to understand who I was, where I fit in & to embrace my sexuality. As I turned 20 I simple proclaimed, “I Am” & continued to play the androgynous, bi guy, for a time, before committing to the male/male scene. Much of the artwork I created then, revolved around exploring these themes & things, in a world that had barely begun to understand, muchless accept a more varied concept of human sexuality. I identify as QUEER & my pronoun is ‘Thone’.
Now as then, these themed artworks were meant to be in your face, in your mind & make you think... A way to say, I am here, so get used to it, over it. In 1962, Illinois, the state I live and grew up in, became the first state to take the archaic sodomy laws off the books. I was born in 64’. By 1982, the year I graduated from high school, HIV/Aids was at the forefront of happenings and we had a president who was doing everything possible to ignore and play it down. It was, “only effecting the homos” anyway, or so they thought. In 2020, we had a president who blindly, knowingly sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Americans to another world wide pandemic, COVID, for his own narrow minded cause….power, money & greed, while at the same time, undermining & rolling back 100s of educated/enlightened/progressive policies, including those designed to acknowledge & integrate the LGBTQ communities in the U.S.A. When your country, your world is at war with you, you fight back, art was/is my vehicle and the message is, I AM!
History is more circuitous than linear, LGBTQ people exist in every culture from the beginning of time, throughout the ebb and flow of acceptability. It’s only when person’s of the ‘ME” instead of the ‘WE’ persuasion, impose their will over human nature that persons of minority become outcast rather than embraced. When you put aside your fears & insecurities, one seeks knowledge, you receive understanding, enlightenment and begin to realize everyone/thing has a purpose and value in the world. With the devastating & brutal attacks on the LGBTQ communities across the planet swinging back around to the U.S.A., I felt compelled to assert my presence as a person who will fight the good fight for whoever is under attack by the masses. Freedom, Equal Rights & Anti Discrimination, for all & to secure for all individuals freedom from discrimination against any individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, order of protection status, marital status, physical or mental disability, military status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or unfavorable discharge from military service.
As mentioned above, while the theme here is one I explored in my artwork some 35 ish years ago. the execution is different in many ways. This piece was painted over a 4 month period of layering and enhancing. I utilize a variety of brushes, palette knives, pencils, paint markers, scratching tools and even tissues to achieve the desired aesthetic. Here we have lots of scribbles, marks & erasures, plus abstract & realistic elements, I began with a 4 color acrylic drip & splatter painting, then began to paint me in, a layer of ebony pencil written graffiti & symbols, oil painted some blocks of color & form, oil pastel enhanced, charcoal stick, 18K gold paint giving more line and symbol, my signature 18k gold leaf addition & then stenciled the unmistakable word QUEER. Next it was time to entitle the piece, ‘Queer AF Selfie’, ‘57 Special’, were on the table, but my original thought stuck, “Portrait of the Artist in His 50s”, 40”square mixed media on canvas was finalized with my signature.
As always feel free to ask question or comment,
Richard R. Sperry
‘Portrait of the Artist in His 50s’ 40”x40” mixed media on canvas $57,000.00 available
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