Working with images of bodybuilder Nick Deacon, (re)Pose is a sprawling series. The work ranges in styles from representational to abstract. Rooted in its singular subject, the collection varies in technique. The array of media adds to its rich visual density. Works include prints on paper and metal as well as mixed media.
(re)Pose documents my struggle to reclaim my identity. The model has been reduced to a blank canvas and in the process a placeholder for myself to step into.
My earliest memory was seeing two gymnasts. A wholesomeness illuminated their muscularity. In their gleaming presence, I learned who I was; them.
Two years later I was publicly sexually assaulted. It ostracized me from the peers who witnessed it. In an instance, I became an outsider. The humiliating defeat rewrote my identity and severed me from boyhood. In the darkness of shame, my affinity for physical masculinity was a sham. Whom I knew myself to be, became the Other.
I lived detached from these elemental parts of myself for decades. Late in life, I choose to wage war on those mangled beliefs. To win, I must make the inner ghost solid. To that end, under Nick’s coaching, I have been bodybuilding since 2018.
More about the artist and a retrospective of his work is at