I’m a dyslexic introvert who is queer. I’ve always felt as if I’ve been on the outside looking in. Growing up in a less than supportive environment, art was an escape for me. I would spend hours hidden away somewhere painting or drawing the world I wanted to live in. This was a masculine world filled with soldiers, cowboys, and adventure.

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I clearly remember the day I was introduced to the idea that art could be porn and porn could be art. While I was attending Parsons at the tender age of 18, I was working in the West Village. On my way to work one afternoon, I passed a card shop that sold gay-themed cards and tchotchkes. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a postcard that turned out to be Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Man in a Polyester Suit.” The image is of a light polyester clad torso with a huge black dick hanging out. This image is still seared into my brain. It’s like it went from my retinas directly to my nervous system. Art school gave me a high-minded way of thinking about art. I held a notion that I wanted my paintings to be timeless. I didn’t want them to have objects or props that would date them, or make them illustrations. I wanted to paint about what it is to be human in an emotional sense – in a way that transcended time. I wanted to express the divine feeling I felt when I looked at great masters’ works. The postcard was not part of this ideal, though it haunted me. I don’t know if it was fear or shame, or maybe that it was considered porn – I wasn’t brave enough to know how important that image was yet. By 2002, my exploration through sex had become the place where I felt like part of the human race. The place where I’m part of something bigger than myself. Though I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, I began to express this in my art. I painted a series of genitalia as portraits. I ended up doing 20 of them. Half women, half men. They were well-received at a show in San Francisco. My internal world started blossoming out into my external world. I now paint people and things from my life that visually stimulate me. I try not to intellectualize it too much. I feel my subconscious needs to be as much a part as the conscious for the images to stay authentic.

I applaud curators such as Laura Henkel for being brave enough to see the importance of sexually driven art. Her annual competition “12 Inches of Sin” draws top-notch artists from across the globe. This shows me that there is a worldwide hunger to create and consume such art. The language of love is universal.

Suzanne M Shifflett is displaying her work through August at the “12 Inches of Sin” exhibition at Sin City Gallery in Las Vegas.