'Pasolini, Cowboys, Lovers & Minotauromachy: The Queer Prints of Ron Abram'

The Global Studies Seminar presents “Pasolini, Cowboys, Lovers & Minotauromachy: The Queer Prints of Ron Abram” by Denison University’s Studio Art Professor Ron Abram.

In this highly visual artist talk, Studio Art & Queer Studies Professor Ron Abram will present four series of thematic prints made in four different printmaking studios (Barcelona, Rome, Columbus, San Francisco) during his recent 2022-2023 sabbatical year, and specifically, the influence geography, history, popular culture and mythology from those locales had on the work he made while an artist-in-residence. “My identity as a gay man has a profound impact on the prints I make and the ideas I tackle in the studio, in approach and inherent scope.” Abram describes. “While connecting the dots of sexuality, identity and culture past and present remains sometimes unknowable, my work is inevitably an attempt to draw the lines between the dots, seek meaning and simultaneously retain the inherent mystery and magic of it all. In his 1845 essay, Thomas De Quincey describes a Palimpsest as “involuted phenomenon where otherwise unrelated texts are interwoven, competing with, and infiltrating each other.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “ writing material (such as parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased” and “something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface”. The Palimpsest is a motivating metaphor in my work as a printmaker and how I use the medium. Whether drawing or working with photographic imagery, I’m interested provoking viewers by revealing mysteries that occur through layering and contrasting desperate imagery through a variety of printmaking techniques.” 

Abram is an artist making prints, primarily etchings, for 42 years. Situated at the intersection of personal symbolism and popular collective iconography and myth, the themes of his work speak to the residue of the memory, repression, homophobia and queer aesthetics. His work has been exhibited throughout the USA and abroad, and in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , Mint Museum and Moravian College. He has been an artist in residence at Temple University Rome in Rome Italy, In Cahoots Residency in Petaluma, CA, Art Print Residence in Barcelona, Spain, Anchor Graphics in Chicago, Illinois; Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California; Flying Horse Editions in Orlando Florida; Temple University Japan in Tokyo Japan, Grafikwerkstatt in Dresden Germany and Taktkunstprojektraum in Berlin Germany. He has worked collaboratively as a designer on theatrical, dance and music productions. His work as a curator extents themes found in his work including exhibitions and portfolios such as Finlandia: Prints and Music Inspired by Tom of Finland (2011), Songs in Reverse: Ten Prints by Eight Gay Men (2010), and Bizarro World: The Parallel Universes of Comics and Fine Arts (2000). He received his BFA from the University of Central Florida and his MFA from Tyler School of Art & Architecture of Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Abram has taught printmaking and drawing since 1989, teaching at Rutgers, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tyler School of Art, Abington Art Center and is Full Professor of Studio Art and Queer Studies at Denison University in Granville, Ohio where he has taught since 1995.