Muse

A collaborative body of work with Niki GrangruthMuse explores non-conforming gender identity, beauty, and the gaze through the reinterpretation of well-known paintings from art history. The series documents a process of gender play—a conscious hybridization of hyperfeminine and masculine as a way of exploring the fluid, performative, and sometimes dichotomous elements of identity.

Girl with a Pearl Earring After Vermeer

Girl with a Pearl Earring (after Vermeer), 2009

Girl with a Pearl Earring (after Vermeer), 2009

Birth of Venus (after Botticelli), 2009

Birth of Venus (after Botticelli), 2009

Odalisque (after Ingres), 2009

Odalisque (after Ingres), 2009

The Valpinçon Bather (after Ingres), 2010

The Valpinçon Bather (after Ingres), 2010

Olympia (after Ingres), 2009

Olympia (after Ingres), 2009

Black Magic (after Magritte), 2012

Black Magic (after Magritte), 2012

Portrait of Madame X (after Sargent), 2012

Portrait of Madame X (after Sargent), 2012

Ophelia (after Millais)

Ophelia (after Millais), 2013

Ophelia (after Millais), 2013

A Bar at the Folies-Bergére (after Manet), 2015

A Bar at the Folies-Bergére (after Manet), 2015

Whistler's Mother (after Whistler), 2015

Whistler's Mother (after Whistler), 2015

Annunciation (after Botticelli), 2015

Annunciation (after Botticelli), 2015

Mrs. George Swinton (after Sargent), 2017

Mrs. George Swinton (after Sargent), 2017

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (After Klimt), 2017

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (After Klimt), 2017

The Dream (After Rousseau), 2019

The Dream (After Rousseau), 2019

Death of Marat (After David), 2021

Death of Marat (After David), 2021

Artists' Statement

For more than 10 years, artists Niki Grangruth and James Kinser have been collaborating on Muse, a series of photographs that explore issues of non-conforming gender identity. Through the reinterpretation of well-known paintings from art history, the photographs provide a sense of familiarity while inviting viewers to confront their own levels of comfort and acceptance around nonconforming or non-binary gender identity and expression. The conscious hybridization of hyperfeminine and masculine elements in the photographs provides for exploration of the fluid, performative, and sometimes dichotomous, elements of identity.

The photographs, sets, and costumes are carefully constructed to reflect a painterly aesthetic, and the use of the male subject, gaze, and costumes question common gender-specific beauty ideals. Each work in the Muse series asks viewers to confront and question their own perceptions of gender, and typically fosters dialogue around topics of art history, appropriation, identity and photography, aesthetics, gender studies, costume design, and LGBTQ social and political issues. This project is meant to contribute to the larger conversation around the acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming community, and highlight the notion that gender is a construct that is performative, malleable, and ever-changing.