Luke Shand

My practice is centred around the mediums of oil paint and watercolour. Using painting and printmaking to create imagery that ties into the queer experience both personally and one's that are shared within the wider queer community. I'm interested in notions associated with our community like the ideas of camp, flamboyance, horror and performance and how these subjects can be translated directly into the act of painting or through the imagery I work from. I'm focused on the process of making and the material value and qualities that paint possesses. Creating paintings that I slowly build through thin, transparent, liquid layers to become more opaque injecting them with bold colours to further tie the works into the flamboyant sensibilities mentioned above. Using mediums like mono printing to create painterly like prints that communicates that same visual language, continuing to employ marks that are gestural and create a sense of motion and liveliness in this still medium.

The work I make delves into the creation of the multiple, both in painting and printmaking through modes like triptychs and books. Thinking about the narrative possibilities available when creating multiples and how the concept relates directly to queer theory through the idea of creating several unique and subversive outcomes. My work is almost entirely figurative, utilising the body to explore ideas relating to queer bodily expression and also how the body interacts within queer spaces.