Skin as Ecstatic Surface: Listening to Queer Diaspora in the work of Patrick Cruz

Abstract

Patrick Cruz is a Toronto-based painter whose artistic practice is informed by his experience of migrating from the Philippines to Canada. The Filipinx diaspora in Canada is large but often not given adequate attention in queer theories of nationhood. This article makes the argument that the textures or “skin” of Patrick Cruz’s canvases are an extension of his interior world and insist on the complex psychic, corporeal, and sonic contours of Filipinx migration and diasporic subjectivity in Canada. It proposes a queer theory of listening to suggest that Cruz’s paintings are important for their expression of Filipinx diaspora. Bringing sound studies to bear on notions of skin, surface, and queer affect, this article makes the case that when one listens closely to a painting a new intimacy with the work and the Filipinx artist is forged. Central to arguments made is scholarship produced in the fields of queer diaspora studies and Filipinx studies.