Camp America

The native North American peoples in these paintings are camping it up so much that the term homoerotic does not do them justice. They are - to use the pejorative term used on that continent - out-and-out faggots. They're by Canadian artist Kent Monkman, and are parodies of nineteenth-century painting - the dramatic kind made by artists who depicted Europe's subjected colonies and their indigenous inhabitants. Monkman's work could, if we wanted to, be discussed in terms of colonialism or gay studies, but they're not really that thoughtful. They're just fantastic fun; saturated in irony, and full of absurdist nonsense and silly humour.

Neal Brown