Digital Photography | Archival Pigment Print, 2022
Graduate
Self Portrait 1948 (America’s Favorite Pastime) takes inspiration compositionally and in its namesake from a Frida Kahlo self portrait. Creating a series of costumes and characters, in this instance a baseball-card headpiece, this self portrait contemplates forced masculinity in my youth.
Reminiscing on a lifelong interest in collecting, I wanted to contemplate on my fascination with baseball cards. Both collecting for the sake of objects but also picking baseball players I found either attractive or good looking, what to outsiders may have looked masculine and boyish was much more queer and gay in retrospect. This self portrait features me in blue face paint, while revealing my chest and underwear; balancing between tradition and self-expression, much like Kahlo did in her art and life, this portrait pays homage to the trailblazing painter, takes her compositional strength from the 1948 work, and puts it in the context of a closeted, Midwest youth.
