We’re glad to present Queer Space by Luke Blevins in Joplin Public Library’s Bramlage and Willcoxon Foundation Gallery from Sunday, October 10-Friday, December 31, 2021.
In this work, Blevins explores the tangential relationships between boyhood, social expectations, queer culture, and heteronormative assimilationism. He uses fantastical imagery to illustrate the shifting relationships we have with space and community as we grow and develop into our own persons. Through digital manipulation and processes, he creates imagery that proposes narratives without conclusions. Blevins was born and raised in Southwest Missouri. He studied art at Missouri Southern State University before earning his Master of Arts at the University of Missouri Kansas City. He teaches at Crowder College in the evenings and works in Admissions at Missouri Southern during the day.
The exhibit is open during the library’s regular hours of operation. An Artist Talk with Luke Blevins is scheduled for Saturday, November 6, 2021 in the Community Room at Joplin Public Library. This is a FREE, public exhibit/event. For more information, contact Post Art Library Director Jill Sullivan at 417-623-7953 x1041 or jhsullivan@postartlibrary.org.
Space Boy, digital photography, 2020
Peter and Jamie, digital photography, 2020
Seaman Abroad, digital photography, 2019
Transients Unwelcome, digital photography, 2018
Artist’s Statement
Nostalgia is most commonly related to the idea of longing for the past or, more appropriately, a past sense of self-identity. It is a tool to reference and re-contextualize the past through a personal lens. Nostalgia lends itself to fantasy as our memories are unreliable. We create gilded moments to revisit as escapism. Looking back on my childhood, I see the gaps between nostalgic memories and the events that shaped me. It is in these in-between moments that fantasy and reality intersect. Also, it is where my work originates.
As children, everything seems magical. As we age and understand more of the world, that the magic lessens. The in-between, the habitation of time when the world is not quite magical anymore, but not a stagnant reality, expands.
My work explores the tangential relationships between boyhood, social expectations, queer culture, and heteronormative assimilationism. I use fantastical imagery to illustrate the shifting relationships we have with space and community as we grow and develop into our own persons. I have felt isolated in my life. What was once a safe warm home can become alien and cold and the abandoned places we avoided as children seem more and more welcoming. The history we want to connect to becomes more and more elusive as we struggle to also connect with the people around us. I make art to better understand how society has shaped me and how I will allow that to affect my present representation.
Through digital manipulation and processes, I create imagery that proposes narratives without conclusions. Snap shots of the in-between. This is achieved via layers of information combined in Photoshop: color, shadow, and object that work to obscure reality and paint my experience of the world in all its falsity.
BIO: Luke Blevins was born and raised in Southwest Missouri. He studied art at Missouri Southern State University before going on to get his Master of Arts at the University of Missouri Kansas City. He teaches at Crowder College in the evenings and works in Admissions at Missouri Southern during the day. When not juggling his numerous jobs he enjoys drawing, painting, and a good book.
