youth fountain 

2023

19" l x 16" w x 23" h
hydrostone , steel , vinyl tubing, submersible pump .

Youth Fountain (twink death) is a love letter while simultaneously pleading-guilty to the metaphorical murder of my old physical self as I have visually aged and the mentally archived representation I have of my body no longer fits my corporeal reality. Sometimes, I am dissociative with my current body as it’s “fatter” and less represented in the media as ideal ~ especially within gay culture and social structures. The “less than” body is so shamed. I think about how my body is affected by capitalism. The work / life balance that impacts our ability to remain physically active as we make currency to afford to live while not “living”. We ruin our bodies and minds believing these societal structures and ideals.
Sometimes we have to kill the idea of the “us” we are holding onto in order to be renewed ~ only then, can fly a little higher towards personal heaven.

I’m inspired by 19th century blood letting, gay shame, mourning & loss, brutalism ; as a metaphor for societal standards of the physical “male” body and also the materiality of the work, Michelangelo’s Pietà & the mutual grave of French scientists Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel, who flew so high they lost consciousness.