In the past, my solo visual arts work has taken a backspace to my community performance practice. With the advent of the Salamander Lair, an accessible studio in our basement, the conditions are right for this to shift. Here are some images of my current painting work (2018-ongoing).
Many of these images respond to movement prompts – the weightless (and painless) suspension of underwater movement, Laban effort qualities, and the kinesphere – the space your limbs traverse, but also the energetic lines that shoot out into the universe.
Diver Series (2019 – ongoing) plus close-ups of divers in color fields (all acrylic, canvas or paper, dimensions vary)
Close-up!
Kinespheres (2018-19)
Suspension. 30×40, Acrylics
Kinesphere, 30×40, Acrylics
Tree Futures: Works on Wood (2018)
These poem-images are encaustics: they use wax, ink, paper and heat to imagine new relations between bodies and space – be it the home space of my Ypsi garden and its pine-tree, transformed by the arrival of a spaceship, or the dark side of the moon, where old queer bodies transform. In this play with horror and science fiction fragments, weird stuff goes on, from murder axes to luscious half-shadowed lovers. I love the materiality of words and bodies, and the thickness and soft textures of encaustic art appeal to me. And I really like making art by setting liquids on fire with a blowtorch.
For more engagement with how my drawing/painting/performance/(fractured) storytelling merge into intriguing paths, see the present/breath community project and exhibit (May 2022).
Ice Bar: Queer/Crip Speculative Stories
Petra Kuppers 