left: Hanging (2004); Judging (2004).
San Francisco artist Jason Driskill paints, writes and creates his own digital artwork and video, often with himself as the main model. This multi-disciplined approach is a rare thing among artists predominantly concerned with gay themes, despite the example set by significant forebears such as Jean Cocteau and Derek Jarman. Driskill’s work also has a sense of humour, something which never seems very popular in the art world unless, perhaps, you’re a Pop Surrealist. Laugh at something in a gallery and it might be felt that you’re laughing at the work, not with it. Or worse, laughing at the price tag, and that would never do, would it? (Thanks Jason!)
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Thanks for this note about Jason. I met him a little over a year ago and ever since then I have been telling people about him. Unfortunately many of them are not impressed but I keep trying. I like hanging and one of my friends said that judging sort of explained to him what he had felt when he was a lot younger.
Robert
Hi Robert. A lot of art dealing with gay themes gets by with merely presenting naked bodies in a kind of soft porn manner. I like that, of course, I’ve certainly posted enough of it, but it’s good to see someone like Jason thinking past that stage–which is still something of a novelty in art terms–in order to say something else.