Colorful illustration of a house with patterned facade, surrounded by green shrubs, on a bright blue sky background.

QUEER
HOME
PORTRAITS

Many of the portraits of queer homes presented—all of which belong to people I am acquainted with—represent a utopian view of the single-family home: a refusal to adopt preestablished conditions of the built environment that maintain an oppressive social order. José Esteban Muñoz, in an essay for Cruising Utopias: The Then and There of Queer Futurity(2009), writes that “a queer aesthetic can potentially function like a great refusal because art manifests itself in such a way that the political imagination can spark new ways of perceiving and acting on a reality that is itself potentially changeable.”

For many queer households, the outward projection of queerness carries the threat of discomfort, danger, and violence. It creates a target for those who oppose queerness and queer identities. The rhinestones become a glowing suit of armor for these houses, allowing them to exist beyond the binary ideological construction of the home environment.

Colorful painting of a pink house with decorative textures and large front windows against a blue sky and green foliage.
Colorful abstract painting of a house with trees and shrubs on a canvas.
Colorful painting of a house with a pink patterned exterior, blue windows, and a black roof, set against a blue sky and green landscape with a stone wall at the base.
Painting of a pink polka-dotted house with blue windows and green shrubs on a clear day.
Illustration of pink house with eye-patterned walls, green bushes, driveway, and blue sky.
Colorful painting of a green two-story house with a red chimney and a garden in the foreground, set against a light blue background.