Ryan McGinness’s work is highly sexual–something he says is a result of allowing himself to unleash his subconscious.

Question: How much of your sexuality is in your art?

McGinness:    A lot of it not unlike a lot of everything personally in my work, now what does it actually look like in the work?  There are a lot of people fucking each other in a lot of paintings, there are penises that turns into skulls that are attacking their hosts so there’s something there I guess so a lot of it I guess, yeah.   

Question: How deliberate is it?

McGinness:    Sure or you know, deliberately allowing the subconscious to come through, you know?  And it really comes back to that initial sketch process where I’m just drawing, a lot of times kind of just free form and seeing what kind of comes out and it’s deliberately allowed to come out, I guess, yeah.  Deliberately allowed or deliberately allowing the subconscious to come through the drawings.