My painting is a portal into realms inhabited by powerful and seductive demons that confront tumultuous anxieties around my queer expression growing up as a queer Ecuadorian American boy in Virginia. Within these imagined worlds I subvert Christian depictions of demons as merely grotesque entities by embracing them as a symbol of estranged angels that tempt god fearing folk with queerness. Drawing inspiration from the visual tradition of 18th-century Latin American Catholic paintings, I reappropriate aesthetics and concepts such as the arcangeles buceros and depictions of hell to create a surreal fusion of traditional iconography and my personal queer experiences. The fantastical femme beings are iconized as paintings that capture a moment during an intense action of defiance. The creatures strut across the canvas in intense and vibrant colors with their hairy pelotas out in the flames of hell, reminiscent of the dazzling lights that illuminate drag queens in queer clubs.
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