Director’s Foreword This is the second year our Queer Ar t Club and the Queer Ar t Collective have exhibited in our galleries. Last year’s show at our Stanislaus State Ar t Space proved to be truly invigorating and empowering for our students. The work in both year’s exhibitions showed a wide range of ideas and medias that grapple with complex issues and create pathways for deeper learning and understanding. This year we are in a vir tual mode of learning and seeing ar t and the issues that surround its creation. This catalog and the vir tual exhibition help to showcase the work of our many wonderful students in the Ar t Depar tment. Many colleagues have been instrumental in this exhibition. I would like to thank the Queer Ar t Club and the Queer Ar t Collective students of the Depar tment of Ar t for their work and par ticipation in the exhibition. Also thank you to Dr. Staci Gem Scheiwiller, Adviser to the Queer Ar t Club for her continuing suppor t of our students and her insightful essay, the College of the Ar ts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design and Parks Printing for the printing of this catalog. Funding came from the President’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion (PCDI) Campus Climate grant program. Much gratitude is extended to the Instructionally Related Activates Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. Their suppor t is greatly appreciated.
Dean De Cocker, Director, University Ar t Galleries California State University, Stanislaus
from the Co-Presidents My name is Evan Strope, and I am one of the proud co-presidents of the Queer Ar t Club and the Queer Ar t Collective. Christopher and I have been involved with the Queer Ar t Collective since Spring 2019, and I could not be prouder to see how this community has grown. I have always believed that every ar tist should have the oppor tunity to share their ar t among a community of their peers without fear of judgment or harassment. This is what the Queer Ar t Collective strives to be. This collective is a place for members of the LGBTQ+ to share their ar t and express themselves with a group of suppor tive peers. It can be frightening to talk about cer tain subjects, especially as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I strive for this collection to always be a place of acceptance and open arms. I hope that you enjoy the following ar twork as we explore gender and sexuality as a spectrum.
Queerness Validated by Queerness A few words from the co-president Christopher Rodriguez My wonderful experience being a par t of this collective has been positively affirming to my queer identity and my appreciation of what queer people can really do. I cannot express how much joy it brings me to be in a room full of queer people and allies, sharing ideas meant to uplift and to make heard the ar tistic expressions of LGBTQ+ individuals. I am proud to say that I am a par t of a collective by queer ar tists for queer ar tists. I was asked to be a par t of this and the Queer Ar t Club during the spring 2019 semester of my freshman year and I was both thrilled and terrified. I was thrilled, because I knew it would benefit my peer queer ar tists I worked with in college, and I was terrified, because I am not out of the closet to everyone. I was worried that being a par t of something publicly would pull me out. Both excited at the idea and scared because I want to come out, my ar twork expresses struggles to validate my own sexuality and to feel comfor table living my life openly without fears of being shunned. For me, this collective and the Queer Ar t Club are meant to uplift LGBTQ+ identities and ar tists and to set an example of what queer people have to say about their experiences and the world around them. Our ar twork is vulnerable in how honest it can be and in how beautifully it ar tistically expresses the struggles and explorations of gender identity and expression; the conditioning of heteronormative society at its effects; and the beauty of being queer and happy. These themes can be found inter twined and infused into the pigment and application of paint, ink, and graphite. Know that in these ar tworks there can be seen joy, fear, happiness, and sadness. In some of the experiences displayed we cried, but in the purging of the idea on paper or canvas, we find peace. I am honored to be a par t of a community of queer ar tists who can tell each other their experiences and feel encouraged to do so.
Spectrum by Kera Bruce
spec·trum /ˈspektrəm/ 1. A band of colors, as seen in a rainbow, produced by separation of the components of light by their different degrees of refraction according to wavelength. 2. Used to classify something, or suggest that it can be classified, in terms of its position on a scale between two extreme or opposite points.
Understood better today more than ever, especially among young people, is the idea of the gender spectrum. This idea deviates from the antiquated view that gender is constructed as the binary of masculine and feminine or has anything to do with one’s sex assigned at bir th. Although identities concerning gender often begin with the assignment of sex at bir th, gender is a fluid and complex component of one’s identity. This complex identity, intimate and unique to each person, often is influenced by societal norms and expectations. These norms and expectations are changing, however, and because of this flux, people are able to express their identities more freely than ever before. Another component of gender, which will be a theme seen throughout many of the works presented here, is the relation of gender to the body. This does not necessarily mean one’s relationship to assigned sex, but the relation of outward identity expression through the vessel of the body itself. Through the expression of ar tists who have passed through the doors of the Ar t Depar tment at Stan State, we can see the beautiful, complex, wide-ranging elements of gender. Gender is personal to each individual and should be celebrated for its uniqueness and intimate nature. Let this catalog stand as a testament to the growing diversity of the twenty-first century and may our differences unite us in solidarity with progress.
Transitions: Invisible to Visible Voiceless to Heard by Staci Gem Scheiwiller, Adviser
In February 2019, ar tist and then-student Humber to Maldonado came to me about establishing a “Queer Ar t Collective” (QAC) specifically within the Ar t Depar tment at Stan State. The goal was to give Ar t students, who identified as queer, a safe space to have a voice in a community that implicitly silenced them. Since my hire in 2011, the depar tment itself did not really have a suppor t system for LGBTQ+ Ar t majors despite some encouraging staff and faculty, as well as one or two campus entities outside the depar tment, such as Love Evolution and the LGBTQ+ Mentorship Program. Most often, however, Ar t students throughout the years have learned to keep their expressions limited or veiled, resulting in profound self-censorship and self-surveillance, both of which are counter to the creative process. In addition to the typical stresses that come with critiques, BFA reviews, and class paper presentations, queer students always had to brace themselves emotionally for the worst, anticipating muffled insults whispered within the room and answering audience questions that were born out of ignorance. This idea that Maldonado had of “providing space” for one to speak is incredibly embedded within the discourses of Queer ar t. Historically, “discovering” a modern history of Queer ar t has been difficult to maneuver, in par t due to this voiceless-ness, despite the greatest ar tists one studies in Ar t History were often fluid in their sexual expressions, and several ar tists in question were even openly gay, such as Andy Warhol (1928-87). In some ways, a history of sexuality is difficult to trace since gender and sexual identities were expressed slightly differently throughout the centuries; thus, the language was coded in a way that perhaps cannot be read so easily in a twenty-first century context. Yet when reading about nineteenth-century ar tists, such as Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907), Emma Stebbins (1815-82), and John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), it seems like all their contemporaries knew that they were gay. In my own subfield of nineteenth-century photography, however, reading gender and sexuality codes always leaves a void of uncer tainty, but I have always argued that nineteenth-century viewers knew those codes well, even if we do not know them now. So why is there a disconnect? Cer tainly, as thoroughly explained by Foucault (1976), the Victorian project actively suppressed sexuality in general, but in par ticular, sexual and gender expressions that did not fall within heterosexual gender binaries. This Victorian obsessiveness with controlling the body, which was a global project, was coupled with turn-of-the century psychoanalysis that framed homosexuality as a perversion and mental illness that could be possibly cured, which Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) admitted later that probably a “cure” was not possible (1920). For centuries, homosexual men had to be discreet due to anti-sodomy laws, but these coupled with the changes in viewing sexuality through such narrow lenses during the beginning of the twentieth century, one’s life was in danger.
This is not to imply that prior to was some sor t of utopic era—for instance, cer tainly, Edmonia Lewis’ trial (1862) was not only racially motivated but also homophobic, because she was a lesbian (two women accused her of giving them Spanish Fly, a sexual aphrodisiac). But if ever there were a lethal stranglehold that silenced queer expressions and identities, it was toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was a moment in time when a lot queer coding in ar tistic expression was loss that is slowly in the process of being recovered, and this moment set a stage when par ticular expressions presented in veiled or implied ways became a “normalized” approach to survive and to persist despite social and legal discriminations. Currently, the QAC is a group of 18 active student ar tists housed in the Ar t Depar tment, and last year, they held a successful show at the Stan State Ar t Space entitled “Explorations of Queer Identities” (June-July 2019). Maldonado had written and presented the exhibition proposal to the Ar t Depar tment faculty, and later, thenstudent and Ar t History major Stephanie Jacinto teamed up with him and became a major player in realizing the project. Hence, through the QAC’s meetings, fundraisers, events, and first ar t show, the collective has been instrumental in raising Queer awareness in the depar tment, in Turlock, and on campus. Their effor ts are indeed historic. The Queer alumni have even noted that they wish the QAC had been around when they were attending Stan State. In reflecting on my former students who were out then, they faced tremendous loneliness and hardship. Students now are feeling safer to express themselves in ar twork, in the classroom, and in their everyday lives, albeit the struggles for social and political equality are far from over. The Transgender Military Ban was implemented in 2019; former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (b. 1982) endured homophobia during his campaign (one woman even attempted to rescind her caucus vote for him when she found out he was gay); and the New York Times signaled that the alarming number of transgender persons murdered during 2019 was becoming an “epidemic” (9/27/2019). This list does not include the discriminations that individual states implement as law, such as Idaho’s 2020 ban on transgender girls and women from playing female spor ts (House Bill 500), as well as Idaho’s 2020 ban on transgender persons changing their genders on their bir th cer tificates (House Bill 509). Fur thermore, 2019-2020 did not allude to progress but to a deterioration of rights and socio-political equality for LGBTQ+ communities. It is astounding and frightening how rights, freedoms, and laws that promote socio-political equality can be taken away so quickly, and the mainstream heteronormative society does nothing—says nothing. The LGBTQ+ communities have not been silent on these injustices—mainstream heteronormative society does not want to listen and has not historically listened, because cisgender heterosexuals think gay rights do not impact them. The prose poem “First They Came…” (1946) by Mar tin Niemöller rings true that when various groups in society are politically targeted, made vulnerable, and have their rights consistently infringed on, leading to a downward spiral— these actions not only result in a total persecution of one par ticular group but also of many groups who do not lie within the centers of power. In this way, LGBTQ+ rights are human rights, and these rights are the litmus test of a free society. And because of these political setbacks for LGBTQ+ communities, this is why it is so imperative that queer voices be heard and continue to be heard. We cannot repeat the past. For the QAC, it has only been one year, but already the collective has dramatically changed the culture in both the Ar t depar tment and at Stan State in such positive, wide-reaching ways. The work they do and put on display is brave, critical, thoughtprovoking, and extremely vital in such a political climate that could silence them at any moment.
CRISTI DENNEY My queerness is a part of me that I continue to struggle with. It has been only until recently that I have included this topic within my artwork. While it comes naturally for me to accept and to love others for whom they authentically are, I have noticed that it is difficult for me to express this same understanding and compassion for myself. Art has helped me openly explore the opportunity to face this unsettling energy. The internalization of fear and judgment that I had inadvertently carried with me over time, originating from loved ones and society, has become a discovered culprit within this process. As a non-binary, demisexual individual, I cognitively bounce back and forth between self-love and self-hatred, second-guessing my own feelings to conceal the void that feels oh so familiar. By unveiling this heap of dissonant layers artistically, I hope to replace this absence of peace with deep healing.  
Self-Portrait 3, digital, 8.5� x 11�, 2020
IĂąIGO IBRAE An ongoing dialogue between the artist and the invisible. Stills are from multiple series of time-based footage.
Metaphors on Letting Go, time based still, 2020
ELIAS ROSAS Generally, a lot of my work is influenced by nature, specifically plant life. I have always enjoyed the organic forms and the beauty that each individual plant has. I have developed a fondness for the similarities between nature and the human form, as well as the contrast between nature and the manmade world. These ideas to me help relate humans back to nature, but also show how unique nature can be. Along with those ideas, color plays a large role in what inspires some of my work, as well as my own personal relationships; I enjoy utilizing color in complex ways. Nature is very important to me and the relationships we develop with nature and each other. The relationship between nature and the world we live in compares and contrasts to the human figure. They both share very sensual curving lines, and often I personify plants as if they were human or I portray humans living as free as plants do. Flowers specifically are interesting to me. Flowers are the sexual organs of the plant. The beauties of a flower remind me of the beauties of human sexuality and how we should embrace it and show it off the way plants do with their flowers.
Glad, oil on panel, 11� x 14�, 2020
HUMBERTO MALDONADO I am a Latinx queer Artist who is exploring the self within an identity of colors, shapes and figures.
El Melon, digital, 9” x 18”, 2020
HAYLEY SIMON Overall my work is an intimate look at memory and perspective. In a place where I feel a loss of identity and interconnectedness, it is an exploration of life as a search for purpose and myth by developing images through reflection. I look toward a myth structure to make sense of life, to combat anxiety, and to fulfill the desire for community--how stories flow and create a sense of order through a choice of concealing and revealing, how each scene builds suspense and reason for later undoings, and how suffering all amounts in the end as consequence or purpose. The emotions and pain of the individual are related to something bigger than oneself. What I gravitate toward most is the transitional period from childhood to adulthood that turns the idea of the home into one that is no longer accessible. The way to relate to another has changed. The way to relate as a woman to anyone has changed. The idea of the female, the feminine, and how womanhood is subject to a variety of societal criticisms and views that create unfair challenges in life, and an internal bias inside women themselves is recognized in this liminality. As a result, female depictions are a struggle with the interference of the male gaze and an intrusion of objectification. I explore themes and motifs occurring in folklore, fantasy, and history that symbolize male fears, the dangers of sexual intercourse, the temptations and subsequent seductions, the conflicting roles of women and mothers, and the female losses of identity in another. I tend to focus on female relationships and intimacy, as well as the physical nature and emotional bond as a woman and between women. The physical experience might be understood and miscommunicated as a result of today’s culture and views on female intimacy. Even between women, there is often a mistaken correlation between the sexual and emotional.
V series 1, cnc drawing, pen on paper, 36� x 48�, 2018
TIMOTHY D. BROWN Jr. What is it about the darkness that draws us in, tempting and exciting, while simultaneously filling us with dread? From the shadows we have emerged no longer ashamed of whom we are. We have been around for thousands of years, adapting and evolving with time, while creating and influencing. Pulling from different eras, I am expressing the varying sub-groups, categories if you will, of homosexuality. From the ancient warrior to the British poof, from the butch daddy to the hairy bear and everyone in between, my goal is to bring to light all these different and unique titles we have either been given or created ourselves. I make the conscious choice to work with drawing, using a variety of materials, such as powdered charcoal, graphite, Verithin colored pencil and pigment markers. Drawing is an art form that brings me back to my childhood, back to a time of fantastical imagination and playful adventure. With this current body of work it is not just what is drawn, but how it is drawn, using a limited palette and selecting one or two colors alongside the black and white imagery as an important symbolic decision. I use color sparingly to speak about emotional mindsets, such as passion, dominance, rapture and pain. I manipulate the power of color to fit my illustrations and to amplify them further by carefully selecting spots that require that extra nudge.
Father Figure, mixed media drawing, 16� x 20�, 2020
ANDREANA j. ESTRADA As a Latinx and Queer Artist, I feel that representation is important. If I can make some of my viewers feel seen, then I am happy. I want to invoke emotion in the viewer by the colors I use in my paintings. My goal is to help others feel encouraged to make art themselves. When making art, I like to focus on the aspect of art therapy and how it makes me feel. I do not like to focus on just one medium, because all art is healing. I have many non-art influences, such as pain, identity and sexuality. I enjoy making art or illustrations of the human figure.
She Keeps Me Warm, acrylic on canvas, 9.25� x 12�, 2020
CHRISTOPHER RODRIGUEZ My artwork changes over time as I change and as a reflection of myself. The art I make changes to fit my creative needs and my personal needs. I experience healing through art--my own artwork and other people’s artwork. It is in my own artwork that I find my individual experiences displayed in images that I can then sit down, analyze and feel in a way that could not be felt in the abstraction that is my memories and feelings. I transmit energy onto canvas with paint, charcoal, soft pastel, or any medium that feels appropriate as a purge of feelings, memories, and complex ideas that make more sense when organized into an image. I identify as bisexual and queer, and while I am not openly queer to everyone, I am lucky to have an activity, which I can be fully expressive with. I explore gender identity and expression, sexuality, conflict within relationships, and anything else I wish to decorate a canvas with and to understand better. Art is therapy to me--one that can fill me with joy, sadness, laughter, and fear.
Manipulation of Expression, mixed media on paper, 11” x 11”, 2020
CRISTI DENNEY Cristi Denney has recently graduated from CSU Stanislaus in Turlock, CA, earning a BFA degree in the Fine Arts and a BA degree in Psychology. Having high interests in both fields of study, they want to combine concepts relating to neuropsychology with an artistic spin. A dream of theirs is to attend an MFA program with an emphasis in New Genres and installation art. As they believe that education is very important, they want to become a professor to give back to the community through teaching.
IñIGO IBRAE Iñigo Ibrae is based in L.A.
ELIAS ROSAS I am a fourth-year fine arts major. I primarily work with relief prints and oil paintings. I have been creative all my life but started my college career in the sciences. However, through my freshman and sophomore years, I began to see that art was really what was calling me. In high school, I did floral design, and that is something that helped cultivate my use of plants and flowers in my work. Plants and nature, in general, have always been a source of peace and tranquility, and when you spend enough time with them they start to take on personalities. Also, the way plants grown and the beauty of the flowers and foliage are what drew me to juxtapose them with the human figure. My work explores these kinds of relationships and also promotes a connection with nature and human sexuality.
HUMBERTO MALDONADO I am an artist who works in California. My highest level of expertise stands in the color. As I grow in media, I push my work to new levels, holding it to higher standards in colors. The more colors I use the more experience I get. I am inspired by the colors of the rainbow and their dancing partner intersectionality. I create art, because it is the best way I communicate.
HAYLEY SIMON Artist and printmaker, Hayley Simon focuses on memory and perspective, in which feelings of loss and disconnection are prevalent. Her practice includes traditional techniques of printmaking learned from her BFA studies and drawing, the root of all artistic interest. Graduated from CSU Stanislaus in 2018, she currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri, as a transplant from Central California.
TIMOTHY d. BROWN jr. I made my artistic beginning in Santa Rosa, California, drawing the typical adolescent subject matter. This included dinosaurs and comic book characters. I was brought up by a supportive mother who worked two full-time jobs to put food on the table and to keep a roof over our heads. My non-existent father was just that, out of the picture. My mother and I would draw together on the weekends. This soon became my calling, which I made my way from copying what was in books to creating things out of my own imagination. As I made my way to junior high and high school I discovered that art was an escape from the stress of the day-to-day. Things became a little more interesting when I discovered that I was gay. At the time I did not think about making art that dealt with the subject of being homosexual, but now that I am comfortable with whom I am, this brings me to where my art is currently focused. Art has always been the cure for any ailment that comes my way, and this includes depression, anxiety, and negative self-image. I see the world as a hidden adventure, which I can express through my work. My desire is to reach the gay community, especially the younger gay community, who are just emerging on the scene and searching for a helping hand to understanding who they are, and that it is okay. In the end if my work reaches just one person, then I have achieved my goal.
ANDREANA j. ESTRADA Andreana J. Estrada is a California-based artist, living in Modesto. Her mother received a degree in Art, which inspired her to major in Art herself. She received Art degrees from Modesto Junior College and CSU Stanislaus. Artist Frida Kahlo (1907-54) has influenced her through Kahlo’s use of imagery to express the pain and emotion shown in her paintings. Estrada likes to explore the importance of positive feminine and queer sexuality in her artwork.
CHRISTOPHER RODRIGUEZ Christopher Rodriguez is an undergraduate at CSU Stanislaus in Turlock, CA, earning a BFA degree in the Fine Arts and a Minor in Business Administration. Being interested in the possibilities of learning about himself and the world he lives in through artistic expression he aims to continue exploring his understanding of sexuality, gender identity, and the complexities of human relationships. A goal of his is to attend an MFA program with an emphasis in painting. He plans to use his learned technical skill and business skills to continue making art as a working artist after college.
evan strope Evan Strope is a Sophomore of Fine Arts at CSU Stanislaus. She is the co-president of the Queer Art Club and Queer Art Collective. In her art she has a focus in painting, conveying the controversies and hypocrisies between society morals and society reality, specifically in nature. She takes great pride in stirring up mixed emotions in the viewers of her art and creating conversations through it.
staci gem scheiwiller Staci Gem Scheiwiller is Associate Professor of Modern Art History in the Art Department at California State University, Stanislaus. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2009. Her field is Modern and Contemporary Art with an emphasis in Iranian art and photography and a minor field in Islamic Art. Her research is on gender and sexuality in nineteenth-century Iranian photography, and she is in the process of writing the most feminist manifesto on this topic. She is currently the adviser of the QAC.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS California State University, Stanislaus
Dr. Ellen Junn, President
Dr. Kimberly Greer, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs
Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Depar tment of Ar t
Martin Azevedo, Associate Professor, Interm Chair
Tricia Cooper, Lecturer
Dean De Cocker, Professor
James Deitz, Lecturer
Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor
Patrica Eshagh, Lecturer
Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor
Daniel Heskamp, Lecturer
Chad Hunter, Lecturer
David Olivant, Professor
Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor
Ellen Roehne, Lecturer
Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor
Susan Stephenson, Assistant Professor
Jake Weigel, Assistant Professor
Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II
Andrew Cain, Instructional Technician I
Kyle Rambatt, Equipment Technician II
Stan State Ar t Galleries
Dean De Cocker, Director
School of the Ar ts
Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II
Stan State Queer Art Collective: Gender & Sexuality as a Spectrum 2020 Online exhibition spring 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic. California State University, Stanislaus | One University Way, Turlock, CA 95380 300 copies printed. Copyright © 2020 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN: 978-1-940753-52-2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. Funding came from the President’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion (PCDI) Campus Climate grant program and by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.
STAN STATE QUEER ART COLLECTIVE GENDER & SEXUALITY AS A SPECTRUM 2020