Grover Hogan (The Land Within Us)

I was born and raised in 4th Ward Houston to a Mexican immigrant mother who had a catholic upbringing and a Black father who found our local megachurch to be… well if anything, not his favorite place to spend his Sunday mornings. My grandmother and the television stood as 3rd and 4th parents, additions to a long line of parental figures. These 4 entities, my mother, father, my mother’s mother, and the media, all came with baggage, baggage that bore a lot of influence on me and my internal monologue. The weird mix of religion, distaste for religion, pop culture, and tradition all heavily influence both me and my art. I come from many intersections, all of which can’t be ignored in my art making process.

Three words to describe my practice would be: personal, playful, and alluring.

My favorite medium to work with is probably glitter glue. I typically work with acrylic because I like how cheap it is, but honestly I love any cheap art materials. Not because I’m stingy with money, if anything I should be, I just like the aesthetics of low quality materials. I grew up and still am lower class and I don’t find it something to be ashamed of. I used the materials I can afford and I highly value what they can do for me and my work. Glitter glue, however, is just a perfect encapsulation of cheap hyper-stylization and there’s a lot of meaning in it’s use.

My piece Since I am the One focuses on self love and how taking care of myself in ways that I need affords me the privileges of being intimate with myself, both physically and emotionally. As a sex worker, and as a marginalized person in general, it is often asked of me that I offer my whole self, my body, my emotions, my energy, my time. In return, I get the bare minimum, whatever that may be.

I’m currently working on a range of half finished projects, one of which being a double self portrait in acrylic that talks about my feelings towards my Mexican heritage. One portrait representing the culture I was shown and the other representing the culture I experienced through my grandmother. She passed away in April from Covid complications, and I’ve been trying to figure out ways to deal with the resulting grief. To add levity to my practice I’ve been also drawing a lot of fan art, mostly Batman, just so I can take a break from the hard emotions for a bit.

You can find more of my work at groverhogan.com or on instagram @Spourmo. I’m also on twitter under @spourmoart.