Ion Birch: Holy Man

Birch was born in 1971 in New York City. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. Birch has worked in the mediums of drawing and painting. Often incorporating black humor and caricature, he creates unusual images that evoke poetic narratives, these works involve a high degree of subjectivity and are often cryptic in their meaning. Birch is best known for his graphite on paper works which incorporate phallic symbols and other erotic imagery. He has stated that these works are a meditation on the nature of repression. Birch has been grouped within broader trends of figurative and conceptual art that focus on contemporary perceptions of the body and sexuality.