SkiNZ: "Patience," Personal Narratives of Identity within Gay Leather Culture

Abstract

This paper discusses several artists and authors working with image-dominant cultural coding and gay leather culture. My most recent painting from the SkiNZ project, “Patience,” is also presented. Image-dominant cultural coding plays an important role in how we perceive culture. Culture coding exists in many areas, including, but not limited to, advertising, education, news, and popular art. I argue that most artworks about gay leather culture have focused solely on the “in-scene/erotic” aspects of the culture, rather than the “out of scene” lives of the people participating, thus creating a very narrow cultural code. The SkiNZ project responds to this issue with a desire to expand knowledge and discourse of this minority sub-culture. My questions therefore are “How can I create images capable of expanding our knowledge of gay leather culture, creating new discourse?” and “How can I create meaningful artworks worthy of being created in the first place?” SkiNZ: “Patience” is my latest response. “Patience” provides a visual fusion of the everyday livestyles of gay New Zealand leathermen, both in and out of character. The resulting image portrays duality of lifestyles, creating a new visual coding that is capable of expanding our understanding, by painting visual traces of truth, gathered from personal photoshoots and interviews.