Title: HOLY MAN ZINE (First edition) Pages: 28 Published by Innen Books. Zurich, Switzerland 2020.
"The figures populating Holy Man, Ion Birch’s new series of graphite drawings, are not porn stars or dream girls. They are plucked from everyday life for masturbatory reveries. Like happy hedonists in amateur porn forums, their palpable delight at exposing their desires and flaunting their sexualities is as touching as it is arousing. The sexual scenarios that Birch depicts range from a good night at a swingers’ party to impossible fantasy-scenes pulsating between ecstasy and fever-dream. Carnal but cerebral, the art combines the gleeful humor of Gerard Damiano’s dirty movies with Henry Miller’s gritty social critique. Sex, in Birch’s work, bursts beyond social and logical constraints." - Ana Finel Honigman
Ion Birch is an artist living in Brooklyn, NY. His art blends dark humor and caricature to create unusual images that evoke poetic narratives, often cryptic and subjective. Best known for graphite-on-paper pieces featuring phallic symbols and erotic imagery, Birch describes these as meditations on repression.
* * This artwork was part of our Please Knock Erotic Art Fair 2023 @ TV EYE
