Gay Artist Revisits His Childhood Bedroom

(Jack Early)

One of the first artistic decisions Jack Early ever made was picking the wallpaper for his childhood bedroom. As a 5-year-old negotiating his sexuality in 1960s North Carolina, this took days. “Maybe I wanted poodles, or maybe the pink flower pattern, but I knew this would be very boyish,” says Early, 53, pointing to a print of toy soldiers at Fergus McCaffrey, where he’s setting up his largest solo exhibition to date, opening February 18. “It would offer me a shield of protection to have that paper.”

That decision is now the large-scale backdrop for his photorealistic paintings of dripping popsicles and images of men culled from porn magazines. “The idea to make these paintings came from me stealing glances at the gym or the swimming pool of other guys,” says Early, recalling more childhood memories. “I’d burn that image in my head because who knew when I would ever see it again.”

Early splashed onto the New York art scene in the late ‘80s, but a 1992 show with then-boyfriend Rob Pruitt called Red, Black, Green, Red, White, and Blue, intended as a celebration of black excellence, was unanimously panned by critics. Early, barely 30, went into exile from the art world.

For nearly two decades he worked odd jobs, painting houses and doing yard work, but what saved him and ultimately redirected him back to art was music. “If anything negative popped up in my head, a little melody would take over,” he says. “I’ve written over a hundred songs.” One of those songs can be heard at his new show as the backing track to “Jack Early’s Life Story in Just Under Twenty Minutes,” an audio autobiography of sorts that will play on a loop through a bright yellow Victrola. It ends with Early rhapsodizing, in his southern twang, “I’m not really a house painter. I’m really not a musician… I’m something else. Maybe like a magician. Pulling rabbits out of the hat.”

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