Louis Fratino is an artist whose paintings and drawings of the male body and domestic spaces capture the intimacy and tenderness found within everyday queer life. For this exhibition, Fratino presents new paintings that explore the ways in which LGBTQ+ people are socialised to navigate the world as an “outsider”. This new body of work critiques the complexity of familial dynamics queer people face, beginning at childhood and continuing into adulthood. Drawing visual sources from the personal, Fratino juxtaposes the image of the family in contrast with visceral homoerotic imagery as a way to visually complicate the tensions between the two. For decades, queer communities have endured the burden of being “the other”, subjected to varying degrees of violence in both the domestic and public spheres; permissible by traditional family values and even the law, in certain countries. Fratino’s new work carries an emotional weight that feels urgent, unveiling an additional layer of political response to the social climate queer people are facing everywhere.
This is the first time the work of Louis Fratino is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Juan Manuel Silverio
