Queer, illness, chaos
My work is primarily based on performance and video based and often only exists in the space in which itis being viewed. The concepts that I pursue in my performance based are queer identity and gender performativity, masochism, existentialism and raw emotional vulnerability.
The way that I approach this projection is through the concept of collection, accumulation and a sense of emotional exhibitionism. The work that I make conveys a keyhole into my brain and intrusive thought process. I use
I use the darkest part of me to propel my creations because otherwise, I feel as if my suffering has no purpose and to use that to evoke a sense of empathy to the reader and for them to either find commonality. My intention is never to romanticise or glorify mental illness but rather to share my experience as a form of activism and exposure of the pain that can be caused by the psychiatric industrial complex
My work is aesthetically defined as Manic Expressionism which a term I coined to challenge the concept of “Outsider art.” I originally invented Manic Expressionism as a way to describe my painting technique, as I couldn’t figure an already established style to classify it. Manic-Expressionism is a post-modernist perspective on Neo-Expressionist ideas. My art explores and reveals a world my of raw emotions and fears through
a raw, cathartic healing process.
Thematically I explore:
medical institutions, medication, vice versus virtue, chaos & cacophony, disintegration, transgender rights issues, queer theory, gender performativity, Biopower, existentialism and philosophic nihilism,eterioration, and dilapidation of the mind, paranoia, corruption, obsession, passion, the endless empty search for spirituality, modulation, the imagery of brains, disturbed faces, fragmentation, disease and disorder and psychosis & neurosis.
I reject the label of being solely a “Queer” artist, although it is a label that cannot be escaped because of my identity any work that I make is considered queer even my
pieces that do not explore the aspect of queerness. It is a paradox that I am predestined to be in because the only space for transgender/queer artists are in its own niche of queer art. whereas I want to challenge this because I think that it’s relevant to the work I do to expose and attract a cisgender heterosexual audience to ideas that they are usually not exposed to rather than exclusively speaking to audience with shared experiences. Through my creations I want cisgender people to feel my pain and understand even momentarily how I feel.
Teo Robinson 