Brooklyn Artist Celebrates Queer Sex Through Erotic 'Needleporn'

Creating what he calls "needleporn," Brooklyn-based artist Zach Nutman takes a familiar white cotton surface and turns it erotic.

"I had been thinking a lot about representations of queer sex and how queer relationships in film and TV were so often depicted as [either] unsustainable, futile, explosive or totally desexualised and homonormative," Nutman told OUT.

Nutman's work seems to reject softcore, which becomes apparent through the provocative way he sews his characters. Enacting various fetishes like white gym socks, strap-ons, leather or roleplay, the men on the fabric are typically caught red-handed: mid-penetration, face-first in a man's crotch, or shamelessly sporting a jockstrap.

Using a medium that is typically associated with an older generation's idea of leisure, Nutman recontextualizes the form, creating more room for the normalization of hypersexuality. "I [want] to depict hard, uncensored queer sex in a way that [feels] celebratory, homely and wholesome, and the grandmotherly, matriarchal nature of needlepoint [is] a perfect fit," he said. "[It's] really fun to take a medium that is typically used to sew bible quotes and pictures of cats and then aggressively queer it."

With a not-so-subtle nudge at Tom of Finland's work, Nutman manages to bring the raw eroticism of the latter's work into the 21st century. The men are not as leather-obsessed, gargantuanly muscular or homogenous in their aesthetic. Instead, they have a delicate energy--perhaps because needlepoint is ostensibly more delicate than the thick charcoal shading in Tom of Finland's work. Nutman confesses, "Stylistically, my biggest influence is definitely Tom of Finland, whose work I absolutely love and whose dual identities as all-american ad-man and kinky porn-pusher definitely started my whole thinking about representing queer-sex in a wholesome/traditional way."

But Nutman doesn't only sew men, instead constantly exploring the different ways in which queer sexuality manifests itself. He's currently working on a glory hole and finger-banging piece that are sure to be just as loud and colorful as the rest of his work.

Follow Zach Nutman on Instagram and keep clicking for a sample of his needleporn.