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Marley Freeman, Park Closes (2016–19). Courtesy of the artist and Karma

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which were a major catalyst for the modern-day gay rights movement, whose aim is to increase legal rights for the LGBTQ+ community. Despite certain milestones having been achieved over the past half-century, many individuals and groups are still fighting to have a voice, culturally and legally: to be recognized as equal and to be protected politically.

Recently there has been more recognition in the art world of the important role gender identification and sexuality play for artists who have advanced art-making. Exhibitions such as “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” at New York’s New Museum in 2017-18 point to important, under-known histories and to pioneers and leaders whose work paved the way for the next generations of artists—who are still blazing trails and identifying new modes of cultural production. If any one characteristic defines the LQBTQ+ art community, it may indeed be its plurality.

To recognize and celebrate the voices of artists in the LGBTQ+ community, In Other Words presents ten emerging artists of note. Through humor, abstraction, figuration and new technologies, these artists are pushing boundaries, increasing representation and poking holes in dominant power structures.

Marley Freeman, Born 1981, Boston, MA

The New York-based artist Marley Freeman is an abstract painter whose painted forms toe the line between legible shapes and pure abstraction. Sometimes a figure appears explicitly, or perhaps not. Freeman is a painter’s painter who makes present the game of it all, building layer on layer and form over form. Having studied textiles in Southern California and New York, the artist references fabric patterns from another time: The artist’s hand-mixed colors have a vintage feel. Even the small paintings have a presence bigger than their size. They are colorful and buoyant and absolutely of our time.