NATURE AND EROS IN AARON MICHAEL SKOLNICK’S RECENT PAINTINGS

The artist Aaron Michael Skolnick was born in 1989 and grew up in a small town in northern Kentucky, just southeast of Cincinnati. His parents divorced, and his childhood years were filled with bullying and tension. He felt relieved when he was finally able to move to Lexington, where he earned an undergraduate degree in fine art at the University of Kentucky, with a focus on drawing and painting.

From an early age, Skolnick knew that he was different — that he was gay — and that the only way to handle the oppressive, toxic masculinity of the conservative, anti-intellectual, homophobic environment in which he spent his childhood was to escape it.