Intimate Rut

Intimate Rut is the culmination of a studio-based art practice, public gallery exhibition of the same name, and thesis support paper, completed while pursuing a Masters Degree in Fine Arts at York University. These works interrogate the particular intersection of identity that I inhabit male, white, working class, Canadian. The act of painting allows me to disrupt, creating moments of tension and dissolution. These works aim to reveal what masculinity tends to hide fragility, isolation, and embarrassment, among others, as well as the inability to manage emotions and behaviours like these. The intent of this paper is to identify the locus of contemporary masculinity, map its immediate trajectory, and unweave certain aspects of its construction; then, from there, to demonstrate how this research is applied into creating works of art, and to describe how those works relate to the subject.