Henry and Walter: Queer Cowboys and the Undead
The characters of Henry and Walter emerged as a way to explore forbidden love, repression, and supernatural contagion in a 19th-century setting. Walter, a closeted gay physician and amateur folklorist, travels the frontier with Henry, a vampire infected with a mysterious parasitic force. Their relationship unfolds under pressure from shame, survival, and the influence of the inhuman.
2025: Guilt, Monstrosity, and Storytelling
In the new year, my practice became increasingly focused on the theme of guilt—especially how it intersects with queerness, monstrosity, and the feeling of being preyed upon or scrutinised. This exploration often emerges through metaphor: Catholic guilt, the grotesque, and the uncanny, all serve as lenses through which I can examine shame, identity, and internalised fear. Storytelling became a method of externalising these emotions—making the invisible visible, and the unspeakable narratable.
Walter and Henry: Morbid Fruits
The late-20th-century timeline of Walter and Henry’s story became a vessel for this investigation. Steeped in religious symbolism and occult undertones, this recreation of their narrative is visualised through Christian motifs and bleeding pomegranates—symbols of temptation, secrecy, and longing. Through this imagery, I reflect on guilt as both a personal burden and a shared cultural inheritance. The story doesn't resolve that guilt, but transforms it—into love, myth, and memory.