You’ve Been A Man Today is the title of an ongoing series of sixteen self-portrait drawings that confront ideas of masculinity and the inherited complexities of body image and gender identity. These drawings aim to exonerate the self from the limitations, contradictions and irrationality of manliness as experienced by the artist. They are at once humorous and humiliating, sardonic, discomfiting, innocuous and awkward.

Blemished, shapeless underwear accentuate the nakedness of this pant-clad Pierrot. Look at him learn, examine, indulge, doubt and disclaim his manliness, of all that it offers, all that it denies. Each drawing is characterized by a particular pose or gesture which both accentuates and destabilizes his gender. Some of these self-portraits contain an abnormality, a divergent feature or aspect that unsettles the otherwise faithful representation; ill-proportioned limbs and distorted facial features typify the uneasiness with which this figure regards himself.

You've Been A Man Today was initiated through the Home Grown Window Residency program at Stryx Birmingham December 2024 - April 2025

All works pencil on paper, measuring approx 22cm x 17.5cm unframed.

When something’s difficult, or can’t be had,
We crave and cry for it all day like mad.
Forbid a thing, we pine for it all night,
Press fast upon us and we take to flight

- The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Canterbury Tales

Any questions?