About

St. Louis born artist, Peyton Follis is a graduate from the Kansas City Art Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. Peyton's work focuses on his personal identities as a queer man from the midwest. He works with a variety of themes about queer representation in film and photographic imagery depicting affection and love in violent or casual ways. His emphasis on the body plays a key role in his work by presenting multiple representations of intimacy, curiosity, and trauma. In his work CT Quilt, Peyton uses medical imagery to explore body dysmorphia through the intimate lens that is his own body. Additionally, Peyton comments on historical events from the 1970s and 80s in his queer film work. 

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In addition to photo and film based pieces, Peyton works in fiber processes such as latch hook and needle punch to produce both wall hangings and large area rugs. His fiber work also ends up as part of installations and interior sets such as Where I Find Myself that transports viewers into an intimate space that invokes the queer interior. His fiber wall hangings spotlight the queer male body as an active lover and partner. 

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Peyton was recently employed at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 2022, he was awarded the McKeown Special Project Grant to build a manual loom and begin his work in fiber tapestries. He has also been awarded the President’s Cabinet Scholarship by KCAI (2018). He has exhibited collaboratively in shows like the Annual BFA Exhibition: Landscapes of Intimacy, KCAI Gallery (2022); 3, KCAI Gallery (2021); Hybrid Hardness, Volker-Building (2020); Near|Far, Volker-Building (2019); and The Things We Carry, Kansas City Art Institute (2018).