Elaine Almeida
To be known, 2020, digital illustration, 4 x 5”
Describe your artistic style in three words.
tender, ephemeral, queer
What's inspiring you right now?
Currently I have been intimate with the concept of touch as visibility.
As a queer artist, I’m not interested in more queer representation, but paradigmatic shifts where queerness, tenderness, pleasure—the things I hold dearest—aren’t vying for more space in the public imaginary but rather are wholly experienced and embraced by all the senses.
In an era of visibility, what does it mean to fight for touch? Touch that makes us feel safe, known and unafraid? Is it ok that the things we desire wax and wane like the moon; not always fully visible but it’s pull undeniable? What does it mean for me, artist, student, lover, quarantinee, to sit with this?
The conversations I've had with friends, mediated by digital space (which all together heightens my desire for touch,) have challenged and inspired me in profound measures.
What do you do when you're feeling uninspired?
This may seem like cheating since I am a digital illustrator, but my favorite way to fight artist block is to trace subjects I don't typically sketch. I will spend hours tracing and tracing, allowing my hands to travel along new paths, or follow lines I myself would have never chosen.
As I mostly create male nudes, tracing architecture and flowers grants me access to explore new shapes and meet curves and lines before unknown to me.
Tell us something unique about your process.
I firmly believe my work as a scholar is incomplete without my art practice, and that my art needs my study to survive. I think many of us are taught to compartmentalize, to keep our work and pleasures separate from each other to protect their sanctity. But I find existing at their intersection more sustainable, the entangled product of their hybridity more dynamic and efficient than jumping between the two. For others, this is a path for burn out. But in this sweet, confusing season of my life, this is the spark illuminating my way.
What advice do you have for other artists?
We worry so much about finding our style, about standing out from the crowd. Don't worry about finding your "style"— worry about your voice, what you're trying to say. You'll oftentimes find your voice is the truest compass north. To me, a compelling story is more impactful than a cohesive aesthetic. Life is not linear, so why should your style be? Choose a story, always.
Anything else you'd like to share?
Self taught as an artist, my axiom '“strength in tenderness” guides both the practice and presentation of my work. I engage in light, minimalist sketches, meditating on touch and the erotic not as carnal, but deeply human and grounding. Here, the use of as few lines as possible—oftentimes leaning on my mindful practice of creating one-line sketches—serves as commentary on the sense of wholeness those seemingly perceived as ‘work in projects’ can imbue.
Held, Briefly, 2020, digital illustration, 4 x 5”
Flowers, Loved, 2019, digital illustration, 33 x 41”
Undies, 2019, digital illustration, 33 x 41”
Somewhere in Northern Italy, 2019, digital illustration, 33 x 41”
Reconciled, 2020, digital illustration, 4 x 5”
Call You and Uber, 2019, digital illustration, 33 x 41”
One-Line Lovers, 2019, digital illustration, 33 x 41”
Making Sense Of It All, 2020, digital illustration, 4 x 5”
Tears Dry On Their Own, 2020, digital illustration, 4 x 5”
I am an artist/scholar deeply entangled in questions of tenderness and pleasure. At my core, I ask “what are the public realities of pleasure in marginalized bodies: how is it practiced, how is it stolen, and how does liberation reimagine these realities?” I am guided by strength in tenderness.