He Would Like To Be Held

A new book of text and imagery, ‘He Would Like To Be Held’ sits somewhere between poetry and fiction: a portrait of one man riddled with queer shame is constructed through short accounts of his existence in the world and in his head. Each separate account serves as a work, but together, they examine the violence of repressed queerness. We see this in his difficulty moving beyond the boundaries of a troubled adolescence, and the fear associated with of translating a rich, queer internal world into an external reality. Though elusive by nature, accounts of his dreams provide moments of clarity; legitimising his fears, desires and anger whilst simultaneously propelling him towards a world in which translating the internal to the external becomes an inevitability as opposed to a fantasy. The images are photographs, scanned paintings and collages (many from the visual work in the exhibition), printed with handmade pink ink onto paper. Ink was injected into digital printer cartridges using a needle and syringe.

A5, 33 pages, printed on off-white recycled paper. To see more images of the inside of the book, visit my instagram @asleeperswork

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