✓John McVay
Calm Boys, 2022
Photographic print
Courtesy of the artist.

John McVay has spent most of his life in Phoenix and Tucson. His immersion in the Arizona punk and DIY scenes helped to shape his work into a multifaceted cultural critique with a specific focus on deconstructive evaluations of masculinity and whiteness. His materials are often thrifted and he tends to use processes of collage and distortion. McVay majored in printmaking in his BFA at Arizona State University before moving to Las Vegas (where he is currently based) to obtain his MFA at UNLV. Here, he uses his printmaking skills to explore manifestations of male emotion, describing the theme of the picture as, “Boys daydreaming and being calm and gentle”—an alternative to the aggressive emotions that are often culturally expected to define masculinity.