Taking pictures in the dark, in moments of intimacy and spontaneity, this series evolved from a collection of erotic Polaroids shot with lovers, friends, and co-conspirators—quick flashes of connection, desire, curiosity, and play. The instant photographs, with their sharp flash and candid compositions, became the foundation for a new series of watercolors: lush, sexy, and slightly unreal.

In painting them, I slow the image down, allowing gesture, fluidity, and abstraction to soften the gaze. Watercolor lets the edges blur, the skin glow, and the boundaries between bodies and backgrounds dissolve. These paintings live in the tension between the explicit and the abstract—landscapes of intimacy.

At its core, this is a celebration of queerness, of mess, of softness. These works are about play, about bodies as sites of joy and experimentation, about the erotic as something worth lingering in. They’re small in scale, but they invite you to take a closer look.

- Matthew Sandager

Polaroids, watercolor on paper, 6 x 6 inches, 2025