Crushes, a collection of work as well as a solo exhibition at MAG Galleries, revisits the electric uncertainty of queer adolescence through stitched memory and coded desire. In this series of quilted portraits and textile works, Greg Climer reconstructs the visual language of high school infatuations, drawing on the glossy optimism of 1990s gay youth magazines like XY, and the secret longings woven into teenage bedrooms, gym locker rooms, and yearbook margins.
The images are reconstructions, amalgamations of teenage crushes. They include tropes of masculinity such as the cowboys and football quarterbacks as well as memories of moments of adolscent freedom like dancing at raves and concerts.
Working across handcraft and digital tools—including AI-generated imagery, engineered prints, and animation—Climer’s practice mines the tension between what was hidden and what was hoped for. His subjects, often imagined or remembered crushes, are rendered with tenderness, ambiguity, and intensity. By layering traditional quiltmaking techniques with contemporary technology, Climer creates portraits that feel at once intimate and impossible—memorials to boys we barely spoke to, fantasies that flickered in silence, and the queer utopias we dared to dream alone.
