JoyInShadow is the name I use because few know this joyful part of my life. I find joy as a painter of erotic experiences. I find joy in celebrating and sharing images that arouse or inspire a community of kinky folk. I also like my privacy, my identity is in shadow from those who may not comprehend or accept what I do or why I do it.

I’m self-taught and living in the northeast United States. My work is inspired by my collaboration with my submissive partner. I began painting “erotic fine-art” after finding some polaroid photographs taken early in the relationship and taking up oil painting after a long hiatus. This is about exploring kink, fetish, D/s power dynamic. Punk, gay culture, porn and erotica have been influential in my curiosity of sexual identity and what is erotic. Are we ever done ?

Nearly 30 years later, even the act of painting becomes curiously arousing as does showing the work and watching others view it. I first exhibited at a kinky-convention. I chose to present the paintings in gilded-gold frames. These cropped and overexposed images-now-painted revealed the un-staged realism that today’s selfie also has. When I was out of polaroids to paint, I took my sketchbook or camera-phone into the bedroom …the selfie, a new modality to objectify my partner and sometimes myself.

It gives me such joy to connect with the community of viewers who find my work beautiful, erotic and sometimes even playful. I often use a cropped or hooded figure. I may omit identifying gender or features to allow the viewer to step into the depicted scene, safely….in shadow.