Skin Remembers

“Skin Remembers” is an ode to the origins of desire. For me, self-discovery was found through the viewing of pornography. I found the intimacy I desired within the taboo, my identity revealed to me through cultural artifacts deemed to be smut. For myself, and others in the queer community, this smut becomes sacred. Pornography is a gateway for curiosity, a seedling of desire, and a teacher who makes these acts permissible. Pornography provides a framework to imagine what it would be like to touch and be touched in these ways. By embracing the feelings evoked by these images and videos, I gained a greater understanding of the intimacy I desired. Using cropped images of pornography, this work follows the same self-discovery process; pornographic imagery is the gateway that, ultimately, leads to the intimacy in these paintings.