BOYS! men! - Matthew Van Alstyne & Michael Alexander Pio Harper

“Boys! Men!” brings together the work of artists Matthew Van Alstyne and Michael Alexander Pio Harper, whose distinct practices examine the construction and performance of queer male identity through representations of the body, selfhood, and the social forces that shape contemporary experience.

Van Alstyne presents sensual silkscreen portraits that proliferate in a Pop-inflected visual vocabulary, set against neon and fluorescent fields of paint. Other works by the artist depict American currency heads up, patterned across the canvas, or reproduce vintage advertisements, suggesting a link between identity as constructed by capitalistic and consumerist forces. Despite this, Van Alstyne approaches his subjects and his own self-representation with remarkable sensitivity, affirming the dignity of the individual.

Harper similarly uses bright fluorescent pigment in his oil paintings on cigar boxes to render his semi-abstracted subjects; his figures operate in the artificial light of nightlife or are spliced by the flux of public transportation. In his work, bodies are mutable, pierced by light and kineticism. The human form fragments and is woven into the tapestry of New York City life. Harper hopes the viewer is left with the knowledge that identity is not fixed, but constantly shaped by others, experience, and environment.