Izaak Bink

Bachelor of Visual Arts

I want you, because I can't have you' is a series exploring the hardship created by the secrecy that defines the queer experience. Violent and promiscuous messages are communicated via 'glyphs', coded text that takes 'Polari phrases' (the phrases and language of gay subculture), real-life conversation extracts, and historical facts about anti-LGBT brutality in order to highlight the secrecy, hidden callousness, and discretion required as a part of coded communication within the queer experience. The coded text is combined with images from gay male-oriented pornographic publications from the 1970's and early 2000's. This contrasts a 'hero' image with the violent coded text, creating a toxic caricature of the exaggerated masculinity that gay men are often forced to emulate. The layers of the text and imagery are intended to place emphasis on the relationship between what is 'in front' and what is 'behind', forcing the viewer to ask the question, 'Whose place is it to decode this work?'