Flamer, 2022

Glass Beads, maple wood, metal and cottonwood

This stylistic tribute to the early 2000s is a sculptural portrait of the artist’s youth. Flamer references both the Anishnaabe ancestral practice of fire keeping and queer sexuality. The work transports viewers into a middle school or high school boys’ locker room and commemorates a queer sexual awakening in meticulous beading. The locker room is both a scene of homophobia and homoeroticism and the work both acknowledges and is an homage to that sexual tension.