Padyn Humble

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Artist statement

My practice is a device to recognize the nuance that exists at the margins. By dissecting social images and structures, I investigate queer adaptation, desire, privilege, and historic masculinity. Primarily this work is done through a persona based on the rugged individualism and Cowboy romanticism of growing up in the rural American West which has shaped how I understand queerness in opposition to the expectations of these places or denominations. Drawing on stage props, trompe l'oeil, and cartoon rendering, my work attempts to unmask the camp inside the myth, seeking the sensual, sexual, and absurd through a sincere surrealism. The theatrical longing, sentimentality, and melancholia expressed particularly in old country and pop music, film, or poetry are the models I engage with for their queer subtext and idiosyncrasies to develop new narrative and symbolic relationships. The work challenges the language and images of these coded environments by highlighting the consequences that arise when the utilities of intimacy, power, irony, or persona converge. Further visual language is formed through Americana kitsch, ‘masculine’ aesthetics, and simulated realities. Fragmenting and exaggerating the formal devices of my work suggests that the iconography and their social currency are unfixed and subject to change. My sculpture and installations utilize multiple components like assemblage, painting, video, and collage.

Artwork