My artistic practice revolves around exploring the intersection of queer theory, painting, and the concept of male cruising. Through my work, I aim to challenge societal norms and question the constructs of gender and sexuality. Drawing inspiration from queer history and personal experiences, I utilize the medium of painting to create visual narratives that celebrate intimacy, desire, and the complexity of queer identities.
By incorporating elements of male cruising into my art, I seek to shed light on the hidden spaces and unspoken encounters that exist within the queer community. These clandestine moments are not only a source of pleasure and connection but also serve as a powerful critique of heteronormative culture
Artificial Paradises: André Niemeyer's Journey into Abstract Painting.
In the fluidity of André Niemeyer's brushstrokes, we dive deep into the ephemerality of Parisian nights, where encounters transform into a dance of shadows and memories. The hues, as shimmering as the summer heat, flow and intertwine, just like the act of seeking sensory ecstasy. Each brushstroke becomes an inspiration, a heartbeat, a drop of desire that merges with the burning season.
Niemeyer invites us on a journey where reality fades, where forms become liquid, and where the Parisian summer transforms into a symphony of passion and heat. This exhibition marks a crucial milestone in his artistic journey.
His paintings capture the erotic ardor of Parisian parks, where bodies search for each other in the darkness, and the heat of the season mixes with the fever of desire. But there is something deeper and more enigmatic in his works. The connection with Baudelaire's "Artificial Paradises" manifests itself, not only as a literary echo, but also as a visual exploration of chemical substances which, when inhaled, intensify the sensation of pleasure of living and painting.
Like Baudelaire, who probed the limits of human experience with substances such as opium, Niemeyer inspires us to transcend the conventional. His paintings are a profound evocation of pleasure and tension, where enjoyment and desire intertwine in a perpetual dance. They remind us that the quest for ecstasy is a complex journey, where the boundaries between the real and the artificial fade.
In his new series, Niemeyer leads us to explore not only the search for pleasure, but also the ephemerality of life and human experiences. His paintings are an invitation to transcend the obvious, to lose yourself in the shadows of desire, and to let yourself be carried away by the fleeting beauty of summer. Ultimately, they celebrate the intensity of life, where ecstasy and passion merge with the poetry of colors and memories.
Lyz Parayzo, Paris, 2023
TROPICAL GLITCH
a general jam.
Sào Paulo, 2020
The “geleia geral” (general jam), an expression coined by the poet Decio Pignatari in 1968, that became the title of the manifesto-song of Torquato Neto and Gilberto Gil, referred to a country whose society was divided and contradictory, on the threshold of modernity, yet hooked on tradition.
A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature.
Andre Niemeyer’s next exhibition mixes this two concepts that are originated a completely diverse environment, but has a common sense to both.
Applying digital originated image problems to a traditional image making form such as painting, underlines dichotomies and creates metaphors to the noises of life.
RAW
Paris 2007
Impassive, beautiful, and damaged, Andre Niemeyer’s mug shot type paintings of young men situates a province of ambiguity in his subjects. The rendering of the masculine icon as both androgynous and vulnerable engages a politics of sexuality, that betrays the trap of persona construction. The expressionless subject evokes a multivalent condition that manifests as a mixture of celebration and critique,
Niemeyer uses desire to beguile judgement and in so doing leaves us with questions. Are
they victims of abuse or victims of their own narcissistic invincibility? Heroic yet delicate, the duality reveals the ineluctable vulnerability of youth and the fragility of romanticized masculinity. The homoerotic element in the presentation of boys as innocence lost is inextricably linked to the problem of identity. Showing the boys as a dissimilar yet homogenous group. Niemeyer uses the idea of the collective identity
as a vehicle to transmit the dilemma of the individual, caught inside and outside of society. The almost arrogant passport-photo pathos in each of the faces deliberately conceals an individual story and belies the fact that each is alone.
Michael Elion