Rollie Fisk (They/Them) is a multidisciplinary artist and performer. Their works (written, painted, or performed) address and confront the realities of mental illness, addiction, iconography, queer survivalism, and loneliness. They are inspired by tragic Hollywood tropes, camp value, theater culture, magic, and garish colors.  Fisk currently resides in Dayton Ohio, where they were born.

Fisk received a BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media and a minor in Craft + Material Studies from VCUarts in 2020.  While attending VCU they were awarded the Peach Tree Scholarship in both 2018 and 2019, as well as the “Most Dangerous Artist” award in 2017.

My work, while varied in its medium, is always steeped in my lived experiences as a neither gender person and theater kid. In paintings, plays, and sculpture, I explore the “backstage” themes of fame and Queer life, highlighting predominant issues within my community and issues that I see at large in entertainment. 

Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz, and substance abuse are usually thematically intertwined in my work. Not unlike many other queer people, I was magnetized to Judy Garland as a very young person. Judy Garland (the Dorothy figure, a hero) and Oz (a magical otherworldly realm) were both initially fascinating concepts to me, but as I grew up and learned more about myself, Judy Garland, and Queer people, I saw more and more tragedy within them. I began to weave in thematics of drug abuse and lying.  In my works, I like to balance the tragic with the sublimely funny and visually obnoxious. I’m drawn to gaudy, circus-like colors and flashy delivery. I create emotional, inconsistent, unreliable characters. My paintings often times look like posters for a circus too impossible to exist. It’s deeply important to me to find the humor and reality within these circumstances because it illuminates the humanity of the situation, begging the viewer of the piece to see its connected profound struggle. 

I paint and illustrate my ideas often, but I am currently in the process of editing the script of a play and designing it’s set and costumes. This upcoming work will combine nearly all of my material and emotional explorations.