Nitty Gritty is on tour with me while I move around Europe and this week I'm in London with oil painter Adam Baker.

In his practice, Adam focuses on intimate, imagined snapshots of queer life and love, drawing on personal experience to build fictionalised narratives that speak to the emotional complexity of contemporary queer identity.

Baker often investigates the contradictions of connection — how queer spaces can feel electric with possibility yet, simultaneously, deeply isolating. Through merging figures, geometric structures and atmospheric environments, he subverts traditional depictions of masculinity, revealing the vulnerability, strength and fluidity inherent within queer relationships.

Both being emotional lil human beans, we talked about the woes and throws of allowing feeling to drive your creative practice. When art from the heart becomes something slowly killing you — substance abuse and pain as a necessary medium — what happens to you as a person? Do we need all of this suffering to make good work, or is just being human enough?

Find Adam on Instagram here and on his website here!

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