ANNOUNCING A POP-UP PUBLIC EXHIBITION AND RECEPTION
Thursday, June 29, 2023, 6–8 pm
The Experimental Space, 43-01 22nd St. #300, Long Island City, NY 11101
Beloved Monsters is a series of portraits in oils that explores queer sympathies with mythic creatures. There are 25 paintings around 2 by 3 feet on average, which were produced between 2016 and 2023. Janet Bruesselbach recruited models from its friends and LGBTQIA2S+ community, primarily in New York City, who related to the idea of embracing being othered or considered beyond normative personhood, in their queerness, and often in their neurodivergence and disability as well. In collaboration, artist and subject imagined what mythical cryptid, monster or mythic being they might embody. Each creature retains a human face and often much of the human figure, challenging viewers to contemplate both the relatability of the monstrous and the ways in which society forces outsiders into these archetypes. Despite the name, not all of these creatures fulfill the narrative role of “monster” and instead are re-interpretations of mythology specific to the subject’s experience and artist’s imagination. Every painting is an expression of the artist’s love for its model, and the beautiful diversity of society’s gender and sexual outliers.
Original works, catalogs and prints will be available for sale. This project was funded primarily by a Kickstarter in 2021. This event is made possible with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.
For inquiries contact [email protected]. All works may be viewed at belovedmonsters.art.
Buffy: To the person that prank called us earlier to the Lickilicky that just threatened us with a war declaration. Anything that I see fit as a trophy, I take it.
My only complaint about the last two episodes of Lessons in Chemistry is that Six-Thirty is missing. He is such a crucial character in the book but he was just completely missing in these two episodes.