November

Even though they mostly work in graphite or ink on paper, Edith Hammar’s oeuvre is anything but black and white. Their award-winning graphic novels, Homo Line (2020) and Portal (2022) brings to life a non-binary, queer and inclusive parallel universe where the boundaries between reality and fantasy are often blurred and fluid.

Hammar belongs to a growing group of international contemporary artists who are creating work that challenges the all-too-narrow, heteronormative (and not seldom white-dominated) depictions of love (and sex) found across art history. Artists like Hammar are shattering the conception that love looks, or behaves in, a certain way, whilst also creating greater visibility for the LGBTQ+ community in the process.

Their portrayals of love —not just amorous couples, but also gatherings of friends and expressions of self-love and desire— are not only art historically important, but also much needed gestures of support for the many young people who will follow in their footsteps (honoring trailblazers like Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920 – 1991) in the process.

Hammar, who describes themselves as “a visual artist whose most important tools are graphite and ink”, have stated: “I am almost always fantasizing about cute get-togethers, entering different dimensions, queer alternative realities. Creating and drawing these kinds of images is a way for me to realize queer desires and dreams.”

Like their graphic novels Hammar’s, often-large-scale, drawings give the viewer an opportunity to enjoy the surreal and intimate settings of the compositions, where real-life situations, or personal fantasies, have been transferred onto paper.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation