© John Brooks; “In a Room Where You Do What You Don’t Confess,” 2023; Oil on canvas; 48 x 36 inches; Courtesy of the artist and CLAMP, New York.
On May 11, CLAMP will be releasing “My Velvet Shadow” which presents three Gen X painters—John Brooks, Anthony Goicolea, and Kris Knight—whose work exemplifies queer time and queer style. These artists came of age with the residual fear that sex, intimacy, and love could likely lead to death.
The work in “My Velvet Shadow” seeks to bridge the gap between two queer generations that were disconnected by the invisibility the AIDS epidemic bestowed upon an entire generation. Presented alone in the devastating aftershock of a gay plague, the subjects of these works exist/survive in unguarded vulnerable states surrounded by a host of disparate appropriations that act as a twisting road map for the preservation of queer culture. Instead of radical sexualization or earnest intimacy, the work adopts revelatory beauty to salve the scabs and scars of inherited trauma.
