An artist in love needs no other inspiration. For Colin Radcliffe, life is filled with metaphors of his lover’s image and shared moments that must be immortalized. Presented by The Java Project, Radcliffe’s solo exhibition Thirst Trap stands before the viewer as a menagerie of memories. Each sculpture is fashioned after photographs, in the perspective of Radcliffe’s own vision and made to depict his line of sight during a specific place in time. Once molded into tangibility, Radcliffe’s ceramic memories are paired with an intimate photo of the same private moment. Adorned with the rose-colored glow of Radcliffe’s deeply romantic gaze, Thirst Trap is a public declaration of and for queer love in the modern age.
By definition, a thirst trap picture aims to catch the eye in the way that Radcliffe’s “Tiger Thirst Trap” most certainly does; it is typically taken nude or scantily clad by oneself, and giddily shared or posted of their own accord. Despite having a clear requirement for consent and intent, thirst traps are often misjudged on a superficial level as a ploy for validation. `
With a sculpted boner and the right camera angle, the mid-selfie shot of “Gotta Get The Right Angle” addresses the thirst trap as a desperate desire for affirmation – only for the figure’s picturesque face of focus to remind us of the lengths humans go through to obtain the tenderness we all crave. Radcliffe’s own blatant desire for lust, love, and companionship eagerly inquires as to what is so wrong with needing and wanting the attention of others.
In a tangle of tri-colored flesh, Radcliffe’s “Dog Pile” presents his unique use of nude forms, cartoonish faces, and whimsical colors as the traits through which his own artistic signature takes shape. Stacked and staggered atop one another, the interlocking limbs of “Dog Pile” bend and twist in an endearingly awkward attempt at a threesome. Radcliffe’s ceramic catches and freezes them in motion; either elated on top or dissatisfied with being crushed, the expressions of each figure – embellished with wide doe-eyes and button noses, contradict one another in an unabashed portrayal of queer sex as a multifaceted act of connection.
Beckoned forward by a deliberate focus on queer connection, Thirst Traps’ cravings for intimacy transcend beyond the physical realm and into the digital. For many statues – whether they are solo or paired with a partner, the act of taking a picture is the moment and means of connection in itself. In “Plum Bubblegum,” a purple figure sits back against the chest of his bubblegum-colored lover and plump pink fingers hold a phone out before the two of them. As the photographer peers down at the phone – enchanted by his lover’s reflection, the beloved plum looks shyly off into the distance. The indulgent sweetness of “Plum Bubblegum” makes it clear that plum is the object of both the photo and bubblegum’s affection; in color and sentiment, it is a dreamy scene of an intentional moment in which love is shown rather than solely told.
While the human figures are engaged in acts of connection, the exhibit’s walls are lined with ceramic blocks of hand-painted texts, Grindr messages, and condom wrapper messages. Thirst Trap is infinitely more interested not in what we use to communicate, but rather the way in which such methods are used. Shaped into life with only the tool of Colin Radcliffe’s persuasive touch, each work in Thirst Trap is an autobiographical attempt to act on the whims of queer desire by first bearing the soul with a decisively vulnerable authenticity – once his soul is out and the metaphysical mask is off, the pants may just follow suit.
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