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- "Oct. 22, 1939" by Caleb Cole
Last November, at an orientation event for newly elected Democratic women in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) cheerfully declared herself a "scrappy little dyke." Certain of her colleagues in the House might have reacted with opprobrium, unaware that lesbians took ownership of the word "dyke" years ago and drained its negative charge.
A similar reclamation has long been under way in the LGBTQ+ community for the word "queer," Larry Bowling explains in a statement for "Queer Visions," a current exhibit at Studio Place Arts in Barre. "When capitalized it is a positive self-identifier referring to identity or community," he writes. "Being a Queer Artist goes beyond sexuality to include concepts of society, family, politics, aesthetics and even spirituality."
Bowling is a cocurator, with Janet Van Fleet, of the exhibition; he is also one of its five artists. The number of artists and artworks is limited, Bowling said in a phone call, because of the relatively tight confines of SPA's third-floor hallway. The show is no less powerful for its modest size.
Bowling observes in an artist statement that for three decades he has "created art that reflects my being a Queer/Gay man living in a predominantly heteronormative society." His oil paintings and encaustic works combine lyrical figuration, abstract brushwork, scratchy textures and sometimes fragments of text.
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- "Longing" by Larry Bowling
"Longing," one of the Vermont artist's four works in the exhibit, centers an image of 20th-century French poet and playwright Jean Cocteau and embeds a snippet of a Frank O'Hara poem, "For James Dean." The imagery is dramatically rendered in burnt orange, white and black.
Vermonter PJ Desrochers elevates the concept of selfie; their large installation titled "Shame's Blanket" consists of numerous photos on layers of transparent film threaded together as a coherent declaration. Desrochers, who identifies as transnonbinary, writes in an artist statement that they have amassed more than 100,000 photographs, each a self-portrait of a moment in time.
"Being seen is elemental to PJ's joy as a visual expressionist," they write. "Shame's Blanket," Desrochers explains, "is here to give comfort and return all the warmth that's been taken."
Vermont-based Alison Bechdel is internationally known for her previous long-running comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," as well as for her memoirs, particularly Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was made into an award-winning Broadway musical. She's also a former Vermont cartoonist laureate. Well before any of that happened, in 1980, she created "Self-Portrait" for a college drawing-class assignment. And that is what she chose to contribute to "Queer Visions."
"Self-Portrait" is a long horizontal work on paper made with colored pencil, marker, ink and collage. In fact, as Bechdel points out in an artist statement, it's a "proto comic strip in the way it consists of consecutive panels in a narrative progression, and it includes a lot of text." The piece is a fascinating look back at a young Bechdel — who had come out as a lesbian just months before — and her thoughtful pursuit of understanding "not just my own self but the self in general."
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- "Them! Right There! It's Them" by Xavier McFarlin
Xavier McFarlin's photo-based works are self-portraits of an entirely different stripe. The artist, who lives in Marfa, Texas, aims "to examine blackness and queerness from a North American perspective," according to a statement. Using costumes — including wigs and stiletto boots — surreal scenery and other props, McFarlin both satirizes and empowers notions of identity. In one round photograph, for example, two figures are posed in outlandish garb on a sort of pedestal of scrubby land. The edges of the image are blurred; the penetrating stare of the humans comes through despite their sartorial obfuscation. The picture is funny, deeply weird and provocative all at once.
Boston-based trans artist Caleb Cole uses vintage photographs to create poignant portraits of isolation, loneliness and absence. One of the images in their aptly named series "Odd One Out" uses the handwritten date at the bottom for a title: "Oct. 22, 1939." In it, all but one of the individuals in a group have been whited out. The remaining figure is a woman looking downcast, one hand clasping her opposite arm. Each of Cole's works astutely pinpoints and highlights a person whose expression conveys, "I don't belong."
That's a feeling many of us have experienced at some point in our lives, but the relevance in "Queer Visions" is pointed.
"It's a timely concept," Bowling said. "There are so many attacks on all kinds of personal freedoms now."
"Queer Visions" is on view through April 29. Learn more at studioplacearts.com.