collection: Pedro Lavin
driada :: dandy collection #00001 :: 2020
Pedro and I go way back. We met while singing together in the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. He's handsome, ultra-charming, disarmingly kind, and has an impeccable sense of humor (read: laughs at my jokes), so I've naturally always adored him. It was only after we stopped seeing each other on a weekly basis at rehearsals, that I really started to become familiar with his unabashed queerness, through the work he started posting online.
When dandy was just a hint of a concept for a new queer art site, my imagination kept returning to his work. His creations are often sensual and dark, they are accented with bold, bright colors, and juxtapose gritty sexual undertones with a sense of bold playfulness. His linework drips with eroticism.
It was a major score that he accepted our offer to be the first dandy "issue artist," especially considering it took a lot of blind faith that this whole project wouldn't turn out to be a total shit show (knock wood).
We are so proud to present his piece, driada, as the first work in the dandy collection. Limited edition prints are available exclusively in our shop.
:: listen :: to the full 25 minute interview, just below
:: read :: excerpts from the interview further down
:: view :: the dandy uncensored gallery which also shows off some of Pedro’s more explicit work
:: visit :: Pedro’s website
:: follow :: Pedro on instagram
“I think my work was also just a way of (finding myself). It was like, an artistic explosion, as well as a personal, queer explosion coming out through my work. And it's only gotten more explicit and intense since then. And I think it's gonna keep going, which I'm very excited about.”
”I also feel like (my work) contrasts a lot with my outward persona and kind of the way people see me, which is interesting, and actually a huge topic of conversation with my therapist, and it's kind of like a split between what I present to the world and maybe what people expect of me versus what I, at times feel of myself inside, I think my art in a way is a more pure representation of that. I mean, it's extreme. I'm maybe not that extreme. Or maybe it's the way that I want to be? But it represents a more truthful version of myself in a way.”
“My perception of others' perception of me is very… shy, or at least the initial image is very good boy-ish and non-sexual in a way, and scrubbed of queerness and sexuality… I kind of even like playing into that, in like a weird, maybe slightly self-destructive way. But like, this idea of hiding a part of myself that only shows up, you know, in the sauna, or in my drawings. Yeah, I think it's interesting, which is maybe fucked up. Something to talk about with my therapist
“I love this idea of symbolic archetypes to represent emotions, or feelings… I was essentially making a Pantheon for myself of gods and goddesses or deities of certain parts of my life.”
about the series from which “driada” (the dandy exclusive) originated:
“This latest series is avatars of me or deities that are versions of me and in some sort of way. And it started with a "butterfly man" that sprung from a memory… When I was a kid, I got a monarch butterfly costume, which is actually so fucking symbolic, because it's like, the monarch butterfly… just has so many meanings in Mexican culture, and in my version of queerness, as well…
In Aztec mythology, it was representation of soul. And then also, it's a very iconic Mexican symbol. But it was reinterpreted in my childhood, forcefully, by this other kid who called me "mariposa”… he asked me what I had gotten for Christmas, and I was like, "Oh, I got this awesome butterfly costume." He was like, "Oh, you know, like a "mariposa," which literally translates to male butterfly. But it's basically a gay slur, in Mexico.
He was not wrong at all. And it just, it gained such impactful symbolism later in life when I unearthed the memory and I was like, Oh, my God, I was a monarch butterfly, you know, and I kind of still am”
“The next one was, I guess, a bit less autobiographical. But it's this kind of flame -a Djinn- like a Middle Eastern mythological creature that's like a fire demon. And it came from this line that popped into my head of like, a fire, metastasizing my body, and just consuming me whole. And initially, when I was a kid, maybe it was inside. But then as I grew older, it consumed me whole, and transformed me into this fire demon, or this Djinn.”
“The final one (driada), that was created for you was based on a nymph, or this forest sprite, that also comes a little bit from my childhood, but I grew up around a lot of foresty areas and trees, and I loved being in the forest when I was a kid. And I just reinterpreted it in a very sexual way. For dandy it just felt right…”
There's a lot of pain, maybe subconscious, in my work that is not negative. It just, it feels like a necessary part of it. So I wanted this nymph, he's in half transformation, and so these branches almost piercing him, or coming through him, almost like Saint Sebastian-ish as well. Super suggestive, penetrating branches and arrows, and there's flowers growing out of his dick and it's transformation but it's almost painful, and like, exquisitely painful.”
”there's a lot of things that I put into the work that I don't realize that I'm doing it until later, until I analyze it and kind of break it apart, and I'm like, "Oh shit. That's why this very specific metaphor is in many of my things" or, "that's why I'm using this color consistently." Like there's always some sort of choice that you made, even if you don't know that. And I kind of love that.”
“It feels more and more truthful every time… it feels more honest. Like, I'm not giving a shit about what someone might think back home in Mexico from high school or… maybe I am and I'm doing it as a challenge. You know, "No. I'm not that person. I'm this person."
”I'm not coming out anymore. I don't have to do that. I'm here, you know, and that's a cause to celebrate. I'm here with someone that I love and I think celebration is the right word. Obviously, through a very macabre lens of my craziness, but I think (I’m celbrating) reaching this stage, which was difficult… but it happened.”
