(Men’s bodies and man-on-man sex, discussed bluntly, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)
On Pinterest this morning, this painting by Polish queer artist Wojciech Woś (now working in Berlin):
(#1) Woś, Boy in green sheets (2022): a self-portrait in which he is offering his ass for fucking; the arch of his left foot curled back in pleasurable anticipation makes the figure come alive
The painting is an illustration in a piece from the It’s Nice That website (“Inspiring creativity”) by Elfie Thomas on 2/18/22: “Wojciech Wos depicts intimate scenes from his bedroom in watery blue hues: The artist discusses the importance of colour, the birds that follow him around wherever he goes, and the sexual symbolism of socks”.
In a moment I’ll quote Thomas’s piece in full, because it shows WW as a complex and thoughtful artist; as I said in my 8/22/24 posting “I PAINT BOYS” (the title is WW’s artistic manifesto):
WW is earnest and passionate about his art — and radically open in talking in plain language about what he’s doing in his art and what it means to him personally.
He’s no artist-naïf, but he is disarmingly direct and plain-spoken. In my earlier posting, I observed that
Along with proclaiming I PAINT BOYS, he should also have trumpeted I LOVE COCK; one of the themes of his art is dicks lovingly depicted — which I won’t show here, because it’s hard to argue that these drawings and paintings are entirely Fine Art, since (like, oh, Tom of Finland’s graphic art) they so clearly embody the artist’s own arousal at his images and convey it to his viewers. The images are certainly art (of often considerable skill, and worth viewing on those terms), but they’re also porn, one kind of utilitarian art, and so WW’s sweet penises are off-limits on WordPress.
Now, in these blue paintings, he should also be proclaiming I LOVE TO GET FUCKED, as we see in #1 and then in three more paintings of WW’s from 2021 and 2022.
The interview. (In the interview, WW’s surname is spelled without the Polish accent mark; but the letter ś represents a palatalized fricative — IPA [ɕ], a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative — as distinct from the pronunciation of the letter s as English [š] in sheet is from English [s] in seat)
“Imagine a Polish queer artist and his nude self-portraits being exhibited on the wall of a bank in very conservative Northern Ireland. I am sure all the conservatives were delighted to see all those pieces on the daily.” Wojciech Wos paints a humorous image as he tells It’s Nice That about exhibiting in his first ever group show. His paintings are contemplative, often soaked in melancholic hues of blue and suffused with a sense of nostalgia. Treating his art as a kind of “diary”, Wojciech uses it as a way of recording his most intimate experiences, “as I don’t know how to talk about stuff I go through sometimes.”
Talking of the colour blue, the artist says: “It’s a very emotional colour. Pretty sad.” But he also connects it with the volatile surface of water, which he loved painting during his uni days. Apart from blue there are a few other elements that have come to characterise Wojciech’s style. The little black bird which often appears reminds Wojciech of home. “Birds are very important to me,” he says. “Even though I moved quite a lot in the past, birds weirdly always follow me.” So in his intimate bedroom scenes, we often see Wojciech attended by one of these “little companions”. The presence of white socks is another recurring feature – “such an everyday item but still very sexual, so I like playing with the symbolism.”
Although he’s now based in Berlin, Wojciech grew up in a small town in Poland called Słubice. Wojciech recalls how he would ask his father to draw pictures of characters from his favourite illustration books: “He got fed up eventually so I tried it myself and I kept getting better over time.” One of Wojciech’s favourite paintings refers back to the town of his childhood. When he was visiting his parents in 2021, he went for a bicycle ride, the first time he’d ridden since he’d had an accident as a child. “I cycled in the countryside for hours and I felt very connected to nature. I felt very peaceful and it was something I really needed at that time.” His painting, Surrounded by Clouds, is a self portrait. He has his back turned to us with a little bird companion perched atop his head. The white fluffy clouds that surround his head summon up that ineffable sense of calm that the artist felt on this adventure into the countryside.
Cosy room is another nostalgic painting for Wojciech. The composition is filled with the early morning light that falls in such a way as to perfectly emphasise the curved back and perky behind of a languid figure. This arrangement references the last photograph Wojciech took of himself before leaving Ireland after living there for seven years. “As you know, Ireland wouldn’t be considered the most sunny place in the world so it’s pretty rare to have a full-on blast of sun. This was one of those sunny days. It’s like the green land wanted to say goodbye to me with a kiss of the sun.”
(#2) Woś, Cosy room (2021), another offer of his body; note Thomas’s “curved back [AZ: as in lordosis] and perky behind”
(#3) Here we confront the many senses / uses of the postural noun squat, one of which fits with WW’s sexual interests; meanwhile, note the Nike swoosh socks WW is wearing; these have special meaning for WW.
The basic sense of the postural verb (from NOAD); then a specialized use in weightlifting (also from NOAD) and (from a variety of sources) five further specialized uses:
— 0 a body position in which one’s knees are bent and one’s heels are close to or touching one’s buttocks or the back of one’s thighs
— 1 a weightlifting exercise in which someone squats down and rises again while holding a barbell at shoulder level
— 2 a gymnastics exercise involving a squatting movement or action
— 3 a dance movement (esp. in Slavic dances) involving squatting and kicking
— 4 a squatting posture for a sit-fuck
— 5 a squatting posture for defecation
— 6 (of women) a squatting posture for urination
In an ordinary world, knowing that WW is Polish, you would assume that sense 3 was the relevant one; but, given WW’s sexual interests, sense 4 is more likely, in which case the title is a little bit of word play on WW’s part.
Hey! This chair is not even blue (2022). A jokey title alluding to WW’s preoccupation with the color blue:
(#4) More anal pleasure; the chair isn’t blue, but that dildo is really blue (and curved)
On being blue. Bonus about being blue, in matters of gender and sexuality, to which WW’s blue paintings can now be added: see my 8/19/21 posting “Harry’s Jockstrap” (sing: Harry’s jockstrap, Harry’s jockstrap, it’s pale blue).
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