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Harvest Season

Writer: VISUAL ART
VISUAL ART
Oct 30
2 min read

By Dirk Does Art


These series of self portraits are done to honor and to process my personal identity and experience being a closeted queer person (until recently). I named these series Harvest Season – that name comes from my affection for autumn and I was inspired by the colors and what the season represents.


I used the form of vines, wheats, and sprouts to symbolize my feelings and my queer identity. Those forms are also symbols of abundance and prosperity, hence my feelings, my identity, my queerness are something to be grateful for, not a curse, but blessings.





A painted self-portrait of a person with curly orange-brown hair and green-framed glasses, looking down. Small red, gold and white vines and sprouts are scattered through the hair and across the face and neck, on a dark brown background.

Chapter 1: Blossom


The feelings blossom. He feels and embraces them, the abundant vines creep over, like a new being discovering that he is magic, he is whimsical, different from the others.





Chapter 2: Heat: A dark painting of a person’s bare shoulders and chest lit by a warm glow, with their face in shadow and their hair breaking apart into small red and pink marks. Vines and handwritten scribbles cover the skin, against a deep navy background.

Chapter 2: Heat


He tries to keep blooming but the environment demonizes him for being what naturally he is. His surroundings fear what he has become. In pain, he endures.





Chapter 3: Wither: A dim room lit by shafts of sunlight, with a small round wooden table, a chair and a lamp. A figure with glasses sits hunched at the table, with their body dissolving into drifting smoke and tiny marks.

Chapter 3: Wither


He closes his feelings and stops growing. He builds a barricade and lets himself wither away. Inside the solitude the seeds hibernate, waiting for the light to pierce through. 





Chapter 4: Second Spring: A dark, tangled painting of a person with a hand raised to their face, surrounded by red, pink, green and yellow vines and sprouts that cover their hair, face and body.

Chapter 4: Second Spring


He embraces what he is. Now he is made from those abundant vines and wheats and sprouts and everything is messy, tangled, yet beautiful. The excitement, the pain, the solitude, they are still there. His form now is ever changing, the wondrous imperfections that make humans human, make him.




Bio: Dirk Does Art (he/him) is an artist who is trying to weave stories and delusions through expressive illustrations. His other projects transformed some drag performers into tarot cards, oracle cards, and conceptual illustrations. His motto is 'Delusion is Fun and Mental'. Follow Dirk on Instagram/Tiktok/Youtube: @dirkdoesart and support his art journey on ko-fi.com/dirkdoesart 

 
 
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