The artist JBG of House of JBG lives and works in Paris. We asked him about how he got started with his artwork, and he told us this delightful story of his journey:
I've always been interested in art and drawing for as long as I can remember. I was lucky to be raised by parents with a keen interest in the arts, who took me to exhibitions and kept art books all over the house. I would stare at them for hours and try to copy every piece that I liked. I've basically picked up pens as a child and never put them down! I was a typical arty geek who was drawing all the time, in my spare time, during all classes on the margins of my notes, and after high school I was lucky enough to go study art in college and make it my line of work as an adult.
I trained as an illustrator but then started working in a completely different field of design. After a few years I realized I wasn't drawing for myself and not producing personal work anymore because I was drawing for a living, and had to reclaim it for my personal use. I wondered what I wanted my voice to say as an artist, and decided to just start drawing what appealed to me.
I instantly gravitated toward classic representations of the male body and beauty, as my sketching style is quite traditional. It then evolved into more graphic images linked to porn and erotica. I'm a very sex-positive person and I'm very interested in working against the bias towards porn and its performers, since there's a huge part of hypocrisy in this matter. Most people are porn consumers and almost every commercial image is now oversexualized, yet there's a huge stigma about the industry and blame and shame projected onto the performers. I believe it's a fascinating subject with a strong visual appeal, and I see real beauty in the graphic situations and sometimes pornographic images that I choose to draw from.
I then also discovered the world of drag and the dynamic of my current work formed organically. I aim to depict various aspects of gay life, from the classic male beauty images of the body to the art of drag and female impersonation. Gender truly is a spectrum and this a fascinating time to explore and represent different aspects of it. The definitions of masculine and feminine are challenged every day by nonbinary and queer people, and I'm so glad to be a part of it and lend it my voice if I can. I really want to represent the diversity of the LGBT community, from embracing different body types, mixing images of uber-masculinity (but never toxic) to drag queens, queer people but also pop divas, gay icons, and relevant cultural moments of importance. There is so much richness, beauty, and positivity to portray and encourage in our community."
Follow him on Instagram, Threadless, Tumblr, and Facebook.
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