The following selected works explore various performative poses as the artist becomes both model and creator, passive poseur and provocateur. McFarlin utilizes bold colors, costumes, props and different scenic designs to satirize the artifice of western culture—an artifice that we may recognize, but often ignore. By using his own image, he portrays both questions and truths of queer identity and blackness in contrast to the “all American” narrative.
See Xavier McFarlin’s Q+A here.
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Performing as a cyborg for the camera, Xavier McFarlin examines his cultural complexity and racial anxiety in America. Using costumes, props, and scenic design, McFarlin satirizes the artifice of western culture to contrast motifs of Queer Afro-Futurism. Alluding to the film technique of chroma keying, McFarlin’s body becomes a surface in which we as viewers project our own wants onto while keeping his true intentions safely hidden from us.
