Make Yourself Free - John Gutoskey

This mixed-media monoprint (with collage, maculature, pochoir, and alcohol gel transfers) from the series, ‚ Liminal Landscapes‚ is based on the concepts of liminality from both anthropology and queer theory. They are an exploration of what makes a space liminal or queer, and how queer space is different from heteronormative space. These monoprints are visualizations of the mental and emotional landscapes of liminality (or queerness). They also explore what it feels like as a queer person to inhabit a largely heterosexual world, and why queer (liminal) space is so important to the LGBTQ community.

Liminal (or liminality) is defined as being in-between, and queerness is a form of this in-betweenness. If you identify as queer, you are neither male nor female. You are ambiguous and figured as somewhere in-between masculine and feminine or figured as existing outside the norms of society. In the same way that a queer person is a type of liminal persona, a queer space is a form of liminal space; a queer space, like liminal space, can be a space that is disorienting and out of ordinary time and place.