Over? Or Just the Eye?

by Joshua Collins

“Through painting, my work explores the cyclical nature of trauma, decay, and social isolation around my disillusionment with the American Dream as a transgender individual. My fascination lies with landscapes that do not exist in our reality but mimic and allude to the vast spread of environments found within the continental United States, creating abstracted psychological landscapes. In particular, I have an innate interest in the myth built around the apocalyptic landscape, presenting a world that does not yet exist as a metaphor for the loaded home space, and how I find comfort within the post-human realm. The land, whether it exists physically or metaphysically, becomes a place of solace and queer homecoming as I work through my own feelings around contemporary events. Elements of the landscape are warped enough to be clockable as different to create a relationship between Otherer and Othered, where the viewer is put in the place of deciding which place in the dynamic they are.”