Ian Stone
Home: Montréal, Quebec
Title: Echoes
Media: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: 152 x 56 cm
Website: ianstoneart.com
Instagram: @ianstoneart
ARTIST STATEMENT
Over the past few years, I’ve traveled to art museums around the world, searching for traces of queerness in art history. They’re rare. And when they do appear, they carry with them a legacy of silence—fragments of horror, trauma, and, at times, profound beauty. A beauty that connects quietly, speaking through coded symbols, rising defiantly from the cracks of persecution. My portrait “ECHOES” is of my friend Nick— a Black, queer, non-binary tattoo artist—I attempt to reimagine a past that includes all of us. In doing so, I ask: What does it mean to be queer today when there is so little visual history to anchor identity? What happens when one cannot see themselves reflected in the past? This work proposes an alternative archive—where queer presence echoes across time, not as revision, but as reclamation.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Ian Stone’s interest and exploration with painting began after his BFA in traditional Printmaking from NSCAD in Halifax, Nova Scotia. With a strong interest in self-portraiture and identity politics, the technical aspect of layering and printing was transferred to a figurative painterly realism. He continued his studies at Concordia University with an MFA in painting and drawing. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections, including the Florida State University Museum, and the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria.