Pastoral scenes and still lifes from the 18th and 19th centuries often brim with visual metaphors of prestige and masculinity, from men on horseback to game birds or other spoils of the hunt strung up and ready to be cooked. Dogs, symbols of fidelity and obedience, are often accomplices in these scenes, serving as both companions and workers.
For Scott Csoke, the canines portrayed in these historical genre paintings provide the basis for a series of acrylic works in which they and other animals interact “as expressive avatars of queer experience,” says a statement from Sargent’s Daughters, which recently exhibited the artist’s work.
Csoke’s brushstrokes are looser and airier than the refined, smooth texture academic oil painters would strive for. And his addition of slender rainbows—a symbol of the LGBTQ+ unity and pride—infuses an element that seems playfully at odds with the paintings’ original intent to show the owner’s status or virility. Instead, the scenes’ secondary characters take the main stage, emotionally dealing with what it means to not only come to terms with one’s own sexuality but the nature of queer community.
For example, in “Puppies Fighting Over Homosexuality,” a diverse group of dogs, ostensibly showing strength and loyalty, gnash at one another. A diminutive rainbow hovers between them, the tiny emblem embodying joy and pride while also being a source of division and misunderstanding—just like the way sexual orientation and gender continue to be important yet schismatic issues in society today.
Csoke explores a wide range of queer emotional and social experiences, summoning emotions and narratives that range from grief to glee. “A Concert of Gay Birds,” for one, celebrates the avians’ togetherness, despite their differences, beneath a slender rainbow. In “Dead Gay Crane” or “Dead Gay Bird (Hanging),” he strikes a more somber note, nodding to violence perpetrated against LGBTQ+ people with rainbows that take on a halo-like quality.
While the original purpose of the historical paintings were meant as decoration, Csoke leans into this as a positive attribute rather than something to be dismissed. “Csoke’s work reveals that decoration carries profound meaning, as it has often been the area in which queer people are able to present themselves most authentically,” the gallery says.
Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram. If you like this work, you might also enjoy the paintings of David Surman.
