CLAUDIO PESTANA MA Fine Art Painting, Camberwell College of Arts Social distancing in the depths of Dorset’s countryside I started thinking about how as a non-binary ‘foreign’ person I fit into the landscape of this county with its specific social topography. I am surrounded by traditional and conservative cultural markers so I started reflecting on the symbolic power that those around me hold. The series ‘Fag Attacks the Country’ is a gesture of subversive resistance, where I hijacked the pastoral genre and invaded its conservative landscape. I identify as fag as a socio-political gesture and in these paintings I juxtaposed suggestive post-gendered self-portraits onto rural scenes that carry a certain symbolic power or even violence. I want the viewer’s eyes to dart between the incongruent elements of the composition and for the viewer to be left with an unresolved interpretation and experience a sense of the uncanny. (All works mixed media on paper, 150 x 120-130cm approx.)
‘Fag Attacks the Country: Chapters I-IV’ Link to article @cmdcp