Print Contemporary Practice
Christopher Clery
Fisherian Runaway
Coming out as gay opened Christopher’s perception and understanding of masculinity, sexuality and gender. Using interactions and experiences with male behaviour in both straight and gay men, Christopher critiques the many positive and negative aspects of expressing masculinity. Such aspects are the unrealistic displays of masculinity and the pressures to attain it. The association between homosexuality and narcissism by casting sex between men as the very image of self-mirroring. He also celebrates the beauty found in the male form and the expression of queer sensibility.
Using imagery of paradise and pastoral settings to represent his own psyche, Christopher constructs these landscapes to express the sexual confidence he has found, and the effect aggressive masculinity has on him. Christopher conveys this through the guise of Greek mythology and antiquity. The use of bird motifs represents Fisherian Runaway in men. Fisherian Runaway is a sexual selection mechanism found in birds to account for the evolution of exaggerated male ornamentation by persistent female choice. This sexual mechanism is explored through visuals to express the performative habits of masculinity and how it influences male behaviour.