James Kinser

Artists' Statement

For roughly 12 years, artists Niki Grangruth and James Kinser collaborated on Muse, a series of photographs that explore issues of non-conforming gender identity. Through the reinterpretation of well-known paintings from art history, the photographs provide a sense of familiarity while inviting viewers to confront their own levels of comfort and acceptance around nonconforming or non-binary gender identity and expression. The conscious hybridization of hyperfeminine and masculine elements in the photographs provides for exploration of the fluid, performative, and sometimes dichotomous, elements of identity.

The photographs, sets, and costumes are carefully constructed to reflect a painterly aesthetic, and the use of the male subject, gaze, and costumes question common gender-specific beauty ideals. Each work in the Muse series asks viewers to confront and question their own perceptions of gender, and typically fosters dialogue around topics of art history, appropriation, identity and photography, aesthetics, gender studies, costume design, and LGBTQ social and political issues. This project is meant to contribute to the larger conversation around the acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming community, and highlight the notion that gender is a construct that is performative, malleable, and ever-changing.