Fabiola Quezada's Male Nudes Challenge the Gaze at Milan's Palazzo della Regione Lombardia

Mexican artist Fabiola Quezada (born 1968 in Temascalapa) presents a solo exhibition at Spazio Isola SET in Palazzo della Regione Lombardia, Milan, featuring portraits of nude men. The show inverts the traditional male artist-female model dynamic by having a woman paint male models, chosen among adolescents and mature men, hairless and thin. Quezada documents her process through drawing and photography, then transfers the image to larger canvases. The work references Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon but reimagines it as a rainbow of nude boys evoking pride colors without overt political messaging. The artist assimilates male nudity to natural, organic forms, finding in the other an expansion of a flower or plant. The exhibition continues a trajectory that began with the Premio Lissone in 2004, a 2014 show at Museo del Mare in Genoa, and recurring collaboration with Saatchi. Quezada teaches at Accademia di Brera since 1989. Critic Giacomo Agosti notes that while not everything is linguistically resolved—sometimes the act of painting overtakes the painting—the sincere effort offers a confession less playful than it seems. The artist blurs the penises of her subjects, keeping part of their youth for herself in memory.