Coming Out Through Art: Queer Artist ego andaluz’s DRAW in the Spotlight
Updated: Sep 30
Holding the latest issue of DISPLAY Magazine in my hands was a slightly surreal moment. Six pages dedicated to my work and the story behind it. A part of my life that I once found almost impossible to talk about, now there for anyone to read.
I’m still taking that in.
Over the past weeks, DRAW, my three-part linocut series about coming out at 30, has received more media attention than I expected. Alongside DISPLAY in Switzerland, the work has been featured by DNA in Australia, dezanove in Portugal, männer* in Germany, xtra! in Austria and akut in Switzerland. Further features are on the way in the UK.
As an independent queer artist working from a studio in Zurich, seeing these prints travel across countries and languages is an incredible honour. I’m deeply grateful to the people who have given them that space.
The part before you know how it ends
DRAW began with something very personal: remembering what life felt like before I came out. Today, I know that my family stayed, that I was loved, and that life became much better. But the person I was then didn’t know any of that. He was afraid of losing everything.
Returning honestly to that uncertainty was the hardest part of making the series. Through Break, Contested and Reach, I tried to give form to the pressure, the inner conflict and the tentative possibility of a different life. Linocut felt right for this. Once you cut into the material, you cannot undo it. That irreversibility has always reminded me of saying something aloud that you have spent years keeping to yourself.
Something familiar in someone else’s story
Perhaps that is why DRAW has struck a chord. Since sharing the series, I’ve received many messages from queer people who recognised something of their own experience in the work. Some offered feedback. Others wanted to talk about their coming out or the feelings the images brought back.
Those exchanges have stayed with me. Making such a personal work means spending a lot of time looking inward. Hearing from other people has shown me how much of that experience can be shared, even when the circumstances are very different. I would never assume that my coming-out story represents everyone’s. But the fear, the waiting, the constant negotiation with yourself: those feelings seem familiar to many of us.
Queer visibility, without compromise
The attention has also made me think about the terms on which queer artists become visible.
Visibility can feel conditional: be queer, but keep it comfortable. Make the bodies less explicit, the desire less direct, the story easier to consume. I question how much room that really leaves us.
I won’t soften my work to make its queerness more acceptable. Desire, vulnerability and conflict belong in it. They shape both what I make and how I make it. Other queer artists should have the space to work on their own terms too, without having to trade honesty for exposure.
That is why this coverage means so much to me. These publications have given space to a deeply personal queer story. Seeing it reach readers both within queer media and beyond, through magazines such as akut, gives me hope that the space for our work can grow without us having to make ourselves smaller.
Thank you to every editor and journalist who has spent time with DRAW, and to everyone who has written to me. I once struggled to speak about this part of my life. Now it is opening conversations I could never have imagined.
DRAW in the media
Display, Switzerland: Six-page print feature.
DNA, Australia: Coverage of DRAW and my coming-out story.
männer*, Germany: Read the article in German.
dezanove, Portugal: Read the article in Portuguese
xtra!, Austria: Feature on DRAW.
akut, Switzerland: Read the article in German.
Further features in the UK are on the way. I’ll add the links here as they appear.
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