Christian Rogers uses paint, collage, and sculpted surfaces to explore themes of unabashed queer love, lust, and joy. Half grounded in reality and half in fantasy, Rogers depicts Arcadian landscapes as scenes of endless visual and visceral titillation. In them, men wander through vast floral playgrounds looking for fun, liberation, and the nitrite rush of queer romance. Sculpted forms bubble from the surface, resembling the curves of a pectoral muscle or chiseled bicep, while layers of fluorescent paint function like skin. The male images Rogers collages into his paintings come from vintage porn, added as a means to preserve his queer history. While being vessels of desire, these men also represent a way of remembering and memorializing the forefathers who came before, many of whom lost their lives to HIV/AIDS during the height of the crisis. As such, Rogers’ paintings are at once an incandescent manifestation of queer bliss, an act of historical reclamation, and an illustration of his erotic utopia.

Christian Rogers was born in 1986 in Portland, OR, and lives in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR (2010) and his MFA from Hunter College in New York, NY (2017).

Rogers has mounted recent solo exhibitions at NOON Projects in Los Angeles, CA (2023) and Nationale in Portland, OR (2016).

He has participated in group shows at Nationale in Portland, OR (2022); NOON Projects in Los Angeles, CA (2022); Tiger Strikes Astroid in New York, NY (2019); Steven Zavitas in Boston, MA (2018); Disturb The Neighbors in New York, NY (2018); and elsewhere.