Opening Reception: September 10 at BGSQD
Queer Cutups
Curated by Hunter O’Hanian
Art historian David Evans Frantz wrote: “Collage perverts the social, political and cultural specificity of images, promiscuously excerpting and recontextualizing them without regard.”
It is something that LGBTQ+ people do every day.
In this exhibition, we examine the work of three New York artists: Deborah Bright, Tiffany Dugan and Rafael Santiago – each accomplished in their respective fields who challenge us to think about the miasma of images we see in our daily lives.
Gathering and cutting, gluing and pasting, unearthing imagery, analog and digital, finding their place, these artists source answers through a time-tested technique that other queer artists have employed for decades.
As we stand here in the Bureau, we are enveloped by a sea of book covers, spines, literature, images, words and knowledge. I can’t imagine any better place for this work to be.
Deborah Bright
Deborah Bright lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Fogg Museum, Harvard; Addison Gallery of American Art; Katonah Museum of Art; Leslie-Lohman Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum; the Museet for Fotokunst, Copenhagen; Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Vancouver Art Gallery; and included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum; National Museum of American Art; Addison Gallery of American Art; Fogg Art Museum; Leslie-Lohman Museum, Boston Athenaeum, Rose Art Museum; California Museum of Photography and the RISD Museum. She has received numerous grants and awards for her art and critical writing and edited a noted book on queer photography, The Passionate Camera: photography and bodies of desire.
Tiffany Dugan
Born in Chico, CA, and raised in Houston, TX, Tiffany is a collage artist and writer who lives in Inwood, NYC, and Arlington, VA, with her partner and their three cats.
Through analog collage, she explores identity using a kaleidoscope of color and movement. Her work is abstract, rhythmic, and feminine with an edge. She delights in puzzling elements together and revels in the surprises that emerge.
Tiffany has exhibited in 30+ solo and group shows in New York and at Kolaj Fest, New Orleans. Her work was selected for the National Collage Society’s 2024 juried exhibit at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her pieces have been featured in six literary magazines and are in collections throughout the US and Europe.
She was a Diderot Artist-in-Residence d’Orquevaux (2020), where her work was influenced by the French countryside. In 2019, she received the Sarah Lawrence Gurfein Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction and finished a memoir, “Love and Art,” which examines a life of art and its legacy.
Rafael Santiago
Rafael Santiago was born in 1980 in the vibrant city of New York and currently lives and creates artwork in the heart of Manhattan. Their artistic practice compellingly explores queer identity through various mediums, including drawing, collage, photography, and writing. Santiago’s work is deeply rooted in themes of identity, queer desire, and the fluidity of gender. They challenge traditional narratives by weaving together personal experiences with broader societal issues.
Hunter O’Hanian – Curator
An independent consultant working on a variety of queer art projects, Hunter was the Executive Director of the Stonewall National Museum and Archive in Ft Lauderdale. Previously, he was the head of the College Art Association, the most prominent professional association supporting art historians and visual artists worldwide. Before that, he was the founding Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, the only art museum devoted exclusively to artwork that speaks to the LGBTQ+ experience.
Before joining Leslie-Lohman, Hunter was the Director of the Foundation for Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Before that, he led two renowned artists’ residency programs. He served as the President of Anderson Ranch Arts Center outside of Aspen, CO, and Director of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, the largest residency program for emerging artists and writers in the United States. The Fine Arts Work Center recently permanently endowed a Fellowship in his name.
Hunter has a long career of non-profit board and community involvement. He is the past board chair of the Alliance of Artists Communities, the national membership organization for artists’ residency programs. Hunter graduated from Boston College and received his law degree from Suffolk University. Phaidon recently released his book of writings and images by Baltimore artist Amos Badertscher. Along with co-editor Mischa Gawronski, Hunter is presently working on a new book about gay artist Harry Bush, which will be released in Spring 2027.
