nicholas bailey

On The Fence

"Nicholas Bailey is a visual and audio artist who explores relationships between sexuality, gender, and performance centering around the nonconforming community, more specifically gender bending. Nicholas was born in Philadelphia in 1997 under the roof of two artists, which ultimately guided him to explore the link between the visual language and performance. In his formative years he studied performance art such as dance, theater and singing, while simultaneously dabbling in photography. In 2020 he will graduate from Parsons School of Design with a BFA in Photography. While in school he strengthened his knowledge of analog photography, lighting techniques and video. "

As an artist whose work heavily relies on performance and the blurring of many lines within sex and gender, I went into this project wanting to understand the culture of performance in the queer atmosphere and why it’s so expected of us in every space we reside in; even with other queer people. As a person who does not subscribe to societal roles within gender, work and everyday ways of living; I find that it is always examined by people who do. By noticing this rejection within me and others, I found visual language that explains the nuanced ways of living as a person who resides outside of the binary. Using tools such as digital manipulation within video, analog and digital photography I’m creating a fantastical world that allows its inhabitants to perform in ways that describe them, that in turn express their fears and aspirations while living within a strict society.