New Exhibition of Queer Romance To Debut at Union Hall

Rough Gems curator Robert Martin returns to guest curate another show at Union Hall debuting Thursday, July 21. The story of you and me is a collection of art pieces curated by Robert Martin (they/them) that depicts the quieter and sometimes deeper moments of love in relationships.

The exhibition features select works by Erickson Díaz-Cortés (he/him), Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel (they/them), Em Van Loan (they/them), and Robert Martin, inspired by their own experiences with love—both with others and with themselves.

The story of you and me references Matt Alber’s song “Handsome Man” from his album Wind Sand Stars, released in 2014. “Handsome Man” is a tender love song written for Alber’s partner that depicts the passionate moments they share together that make their love grow stronger.

A repeating lyric of this song, “The more I try to tell you, oh, the more I get it wrong / So handsome man I’ll tell you with a song” expresses that when the artist cannot find the words or actions to express his love for his partner, he is able to express himself best through his art form—songwriting. The artists featured in this exhibition display their experiences with romance through their artwork as well, depicting genuine moments in relationships that are often undocumented but the most meaningful.

Martin uses their artwork as a declaration of love by incorporating their partners’ likeness in most of their pieces. Martin states, “in devotion works, sharing evidence of time is a direct means of communicating significance to an audience. The creation becomes and undeniable exhibition of love—and even beyond communicating love, it is a deep act of intimacy to translate the sense or likeness of a lover. Moments spent creating those devotional works are and extension of the physical moments from which we muse.”

Along with Martin, this exhibition showcases the work of artist Erickson Díaz-Cortés, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is currently based in Providence, Rhode Island. His art explores “the various ways in which queerness presents itself through color, place, and figuration.” Having practiced both art and architecture simultaneously throughout his life, he experiments with spatial elements and bold imagery to reveal moments of passion, introspection, and self-discovery.

Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel is a graduate candidate in painting and drawing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Ismaiel’s practice delves into desire, longing, and emotional safety through their self-portraiture and daring imagery. They come to terms with their appreciation of queer intimacy through the lens of self love, rather than through a partner. They say, “Often, comprehension and depictions of queer intimacy feel reliant on sexualization and clearly-disclosed partnerships, but tenderness can be self-inflicted, and there is an immense purity to self-love.”

Em Van Loan is an experimental filmmaker and artist. They create autobiographical works that encourage a relationship between the audience and maker through their delicate and vulnerable imagery. Their art piece “T4T” is a document, portrait, and proclamation in which a trans couple experiences private intimacy and bonds through their shared understanding of each other.

In Robert Martin’s own practice, they capture the image of their partner more than any other particular subject. Their works have rarely been exhibited, if ever, as Martin describes them as “love letters” to their partners. Martin’s portfolio is brimming with these love letters, which heavily influenced the curation of this show.

Martin references José Esteban Muñoz’s writing in Crusing Utopia as a summation of the inspiration behind their work.

Muñoz writes, “queerness is rarely complemented by evidence, or at least by traditional understandings of the term. The key to queering evidence, and by that I mean the ways in which we prove queerness and read queerness, is by suturing it to the concept of ephemera. Think of ephemera as trace, the remains, the things that are left, hanging in the air like a rumor.” In the story of you and me, Martin and fellow artists piece together intimate moments in queer relationships that challenge the typical representation of LGBTQ romance in mainstream art and media.

Union Hall will host an opening reception for the story of you and me exhibition on Thursday, July 21 from 6-8 p.m. The exhibition will be open to the public from July 21 through September 17.

Photos courtesy of Robert Martin, Erickson Diaz-Cortes, Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel, and Em Van Loan