‘Still Lives’ (2016)

‘Uncensored’ (2016)

Artist Statement:

“Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behaviour the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.” – Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)

My work, both the visual artwork and the poems, reckon with sexual, fleshy desire of, and with, the other, which promotes and celebrates chronic fucking, as well as other relations, between men, and loudly, so that we are not silent or still, and thus do not condone death, but rather love and lust in a homophobic world.  The self-presentation of the body, a performing body, or a body on display–and shamelessly so, in the photographs are also tied to what is articulated in the poems–they go hand in hand.

Drawing from the Kinsey quote above, I attempt to uncategorise the body and mind–without splitting them–so that the body-mind becomes an open field of play and potentiality.  Also, I move against systems of policing, shaming, and limiting the body, ironically by mocking such ideas and actions–such as self-censorship–which conceals the parts of the body that are meant to be exposed (the face, clothed parts, etcetera) and reveal the censored parts–here, the cock and balls.  Also, in the still life photographs–not of traditional subject matter–of poppers, cock rings, lube, socks, and  jockstraps, which be seen in “The City,” “After Vincent,” and “Piss Fuck,” (all 2016), and which highlight sexual behaviours and fetishes that, I hope, as Kinsey states, open up a “sound understanding of the realities of sex”–in all its diversity and multiplicity.  Additionally, I show articles of clothing–such as socks and underwear, as well as my body in undergarments, to highlight the fetishization of clothing and body parts–the body also becoming an object–to highlight how queer sex splits away from heterosexual sex, and it also celebrates, through the eroticization of things and body parts, difference and/as perveristy in pleasure.  There is nothing wrong with objectifying and festisizing–and these can often, if not always, be a source of queer-erotic (and political) pleasure.

I hope that my work is seen as a perversing, a queering, of the typical genres of still lifes and portraiture in order to show, again drawing from Kinsey, the multiplicity of sexualities and pleasures that can be performed, if you will, in order to draw attention that which is excluded–namely queerness in all its pleasures and perversities in a herteronormative world.  In a sentence, to show, through my queer poems and art, what is elided and erased in our very sanitized, hetero-centric society.

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‘Cum Slut’ (2016). Duration: 3:20 minutes.

2 Poems

‘I Wanna…’ by Stiofan O’Ceallaigh / 2016

I wanna…

…Fall asleep with my dick inside you /

I wanna taste your citric tears /

I wanna Maud Gonne you /

And Bruce La Bruce all over you /

I wanna…

…Start a riot inside you /

And cross swords

As we piss on pink triangles /

And when you’re not looking…

I wanna…

…Seduce you with sleazy bird song /

… And hate it when you faint /

I wanna light fires as you bathe /

And de-commercialize you /

I wanna…

… un-un you /

Then sheepishly glance at the terror on Terra /

I wanna swap eyes and nightmares /

And breed the strangest stranger within you /

I wanna…

…jizz-jazz beside you /

(After I un-hogtie you) /

I wanna up, down, in, out and on you /

And I wanna hate you and paint you /

I wanna…

… dance the Truvada with you /

I wanna delight in de-lighting in the “dis-ease” /

I wanna write on your ass and heart with spontaneous permanence /

I wanna deprive you of oxygen then breathe over you /

I wanna…

… drink you, lick you, luck you, fuck you /

I wanna plan your fake suicide /

And then laugh at the commander in black in blue hue /

I wanna cum and 35mm you /

I wanna –

… really, really, really, really, really slowly shake your branches /

And then run around you and through you /

I wanna sniff as you snuff me /

I wanna –

I wanna do “nothing in particular”.

‘I Want To Ask You A Question Like You Don’t Know Me’  by Stiofan O’Ceallaigh / 2016

You said we would fuck in Berlin in 1916

We couldn’t

Because Easter was rising

You said you would suck me off behind the bushes

We didn’t

Because you couldn’t find me

We will metaphorically fist each other in a gallery in ancient Greece

We can

I’ll be wanting

But

And it’s a big “but”

I want you to answer a question like you don’t know me

Can you do that?

Even after we meet?

For the very first time?

STIOFAN 2017 ||  2018  || 2020

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