This painting by Kenrick McFarlane unabashedly addresses the artist’s relationship with sexuality, fantasy, and vulnerability. Conversations about race, sexuality, and gender are often addressed in McFarlane’s work, as are issues related to representation, art history, and notions of beauty and vulgarity. As the title suggests, this painting depicts something rare within American art history: although the presence of sex and nudity are prevalent within the White art historical canon, compassionate, beautiful representations of the sexuality of people of color are rare, perhaps even non-existent within American painting. Most important to McFarlane are the ways his subjects slough off superficialities in order to attain moments of intimacy and candor. “Day to day we’re living our lives on the exterior,” McFarlane says. “I’m interested as a painter in the times we have truthful conversations with ourselves and others who are comfortable being with us with our mask off. Maybe you’re having existential questions. That’s where my practice is at the moment.”