Jwan Yosef on new homoerotic art book Intimacies: ‘My awareness of sex positivity is super strong’ (EXCLUSIVE)
"I don't separate the person, the sex, the art, the practice," Jwan tells Attitude, as he talks managing his art career and co-parenting with Ricky Martin
“It’s not a chest, not a butt, it’s not a torso – it’s a butt-chin,” says artist Jwan Yosef in the charming, beautifully polite manner in which he always speaks. “It’s fun for me to abstract body parts of mine that aren’t necessarily initially sexualised. … In that context, it’s fun to play and discover your own body in painting.”
The Syrian-born, Swedish-patriated creative is telling us about his self-portrait series Cave and suffice to say, the 40-year-old is rocking Attitude’s artistic world and broadening our sexual horizons: we’d never noticed how the humble chin dimple – preferably a really deep, pronounced one with a smattering of stubble on it – indeed looks like a “hole to fill”.
“What I wanted to do was effectively just superimpose this tiny, tiny piece of my face, but also it becomes an object that looks penetrative,” he explains. “I wanted to play with the idea of, it’s something you could finger or possibly, you know, penetrate.”
That Cave and much of the work in Yosef’s new book Intimacies prompt the viewer to think about sex in new, exciting ways is testament to his talent, but also his study: he holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins, London, and a BFA from Konstfack University College of Arts, Stockholm, where he studied plastic arts.
Intimacies is at once gloriously homoerotic (college-era hazing rituals; mischievously cropped blow-job scenes) and curiously restrained: think gentle lines and muted colour palettes. “My awareness of sex positivity is super strong,” he tells us. “I don’t really separate the person, the sex, the art, the practice. It all just kind of gets mushed together.”
Here, the LA-based artist – who has four children with pop icon ex-husband, ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ singer Ricky Martin – talks juggling work and parenthood, the presence of queerness in his art, and the rugby player ex whose “towering legs” inspired one of the book’s most striking works…
Congratulations on the book. How does it feel to be sharing it with the world?
Thank you. I am so excited! It’s been so great, and we’ve been working on this for nearly a year, from our first meeting until the actual book in hand, which has been incredible. Super fun. Stressful at first, but exciting in the end.
How did you settle on the name?
Intimacies was initially a working title. The whole idea with the book, even though it’s a monograph, wasn’t supposed to be a full review of my work. I wanted to focus on a more solid theme that has been ongoing throughout my practice for the last 15-20 years. ‘Intimacies’ was the perfect descriptive word to work with. And I think when we actually had the final book, selection and edit back in November, and when [editor] Matthew Holroyd kind of put the whole final edit in front of me, it was super clear that it had to just remain as Intimacies.
It’s one of my favourite words, so it’s a good shout.
I’m excited to hear it! The work has always been around the idea of seduction and intimacy. I think Intimacies, plural, [suggests] these little love snacks of intimate moments.
Queerness is also clearly a big influence in your work. Can you describe its presence in this collection specifically?
It’s been a constant, from school and college and my immediate ongoing practice, it’s always been at the core of my work. Then broadening the idea of a play of seduction, of a play of understanding, painting and material and mediums and kind of implementing them into the discourse of what a painting and especially portraits can do to an observer. I always feel like a good painting in many ways often seduces you like any good art, like any good presence. It’s a very important thing for me to work with the core, with who I am, and also, I felt almost a need and a necessity to bring imagery of queerness to light.
One of the works is called Twin Towers. Why is it called that?
I did the first version of this painting back in 2012. I had photographed my ex-boyfriend’s legs, who was also a rugby player. So, like, these very towering legs. And I used those photos to make a series of paintings of what I felt looked like twin towers. And obviously there’s a play, a political view of also the Twin Towers from 2001 in New York. A play on the idea of fallen towers, a fallen ex-boyfriend. But there’s always a play of politics, commentary on both the idea of very intimate relations, but also the wider world.
I’m 39. Me and a lot of my peers are talking about fatherhood at the moment. And I’d love to ask, how do you balance work and co-parenting with Ricky?
We’ve actually had the most wonderful relationship. It’s a very solid and calm co-parenting situation. We live 10 minutes away from each other. We speak every other day. We love our kids so much. It’s been an extremely lovely kind of experience. I mean, it’s not an experience; it’s a way of living.
What’s your message to LGBT people who feel like they might want to be parents but are discouraged from pursuing it because it can feel like a heterosexist society discourages us from doing it and encourages straight people to do it. I just think you guys are such a great example of same-sex parents and queer parents. What would your message be to those people out there that might be looking to you and thinking, ‘I kind of think I’d like that’?
It’s a funny thing. I think at one point in my life and in our lives, we were effectively like, we were a very solid queer family, but also under a very heteronormative umbrella effectively. Married and kids and homes and all of these kind of like typical things that I think most straight people would want and maybe also gay people. I think it’s an extremely important… I’m not going to say mission. It’s a little bit grand to use, but it’s been probably the most amazing thing to be a queer man in our society today to raise these kids into a pretty amazing awareness. And this is a conversation I have with my kids every other day explaining how different families look, how many parents certain kids have, what kind of parents certain kids have. And it’s educational for them, but it also really puts things into context for myself as a parent and as a person and as a queer man into understanding what it is I’m shaping here. I think having kids is not for everyone. I think especially for us, it really is a pretty massive choice to make because I don’t have a womb. So, I’m not going to accidentally get pregnant! So, it’s pretty big, it’s a pretty big thing to kind of take on. But I recommend it to anybody that’s willing and wants to have kids because I think there is an important thing to do here for children and a whole new generation. It’s also the craziest thing you could do. I mean, it’s super fun and it’s glorious and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it’s also, you know, the most stressful thing is also the most rewarding thing at the same time. They give you nothing sometimes; they give you everything sometimes! So, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it into, like, baby bliss – it is bliss, but it’s like a whole spectrum of emotions. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve had nothing but respect for my own parents since I had my kids.
Intimacies is out now. To read Jwan’s Attitude interview in full, check out issue 366 of Attitude magazine – which features actor Alexander Lincoln on the cover – available to order here, and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.
