Muse. Art Opening for Alex Girard

Join us for our monthly Art Opening on the first Friday of the month! For March we are exhibiting the work of Alex Girard, titled "Muse" Come celebrate and support queer artists with us at Strut for a part that will take place on all three floors. The Art at Strut program has been exhibiting the work of a local Gay or Queer artists once a month for over 14 years, and we are very much looking forward to this upcoming exhibition! The Art Opening starts at 8 PM sharp, and will go till 10 PM. Free drinks and light snacks will be provided. Hope to see you all there! Artist Statement: “Boys are Blue. Girls are Pink.” was the title of my college drawing professor’s show featuring embroidered boy scout merit badges donning traditionally feminine accomplishments. It was then that I started questioning societal gender-roles in media, in my up-bringing, and in my every day interactions with the people around me. MUSE is an exploration of gender allowing these, otherwise masculine, men to play with their more feminine side. Grace Towers, a brilliant San Francisco drag artist, uses make-up and the power of a wig to transform these men into high fem muses. As I began to edit these photos I imagined famous artists in history encountering these queer divine beings; inspiring their work in a way that was deemed unacceptable at the time. MUSE pays homage to a history of queer artists who lived in fear of expressing their true identity. Bio: -Alex Girard is a fine arts photographer living in San Francisco; born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. Growing up in a catholic conservative household as a queer man motivated Alex to seek a tribe of his own outside of Louisiana. He found a group called the Radical Faeries while studying photography in Atlanta at the Savannah College of Art and Design. There he discovered the magic of a queer community that felt like home, and inspired him to use photography as a way of connecting to a deeper part of this community. Alex has continued his work as a portrait and fine arts photographer working with members of the San Francisco queer community, and is very excited for the opportunity to display his work at Strut. To find out more about the artist visit him at alexgirardphotography.com