Kyle Anderson on not-so-guilty pleasures, doable guys, and homoerotic art

Kyle Anderson is a busy man, and he’s not slowing down anytime soon. This month alone, Anderson has been featured in the SoHo Project Space’s Dirty Little Drawings group show, the Sacra queer art and dance party, Dandyland at Boxer’s Hell’s Kitchen, and by the time this goes to press, he will have opened his first solo-show this month at C’mon Everybody’s gallery space. All of this is on top of hosting figure drawing twice a week and his day job. Like I said, he’s a very busy man.

Growing up an only child, Kyle relied on his creativity to keep himself entertained. “A lot of drawing things as a kid,” Anderson said. “And they weren’t good drawings, but a lot of imagination.” That imagination later led him to New York, where he studied animation, film, and TV production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before going on to work for big brands such as Nickelodeon and Yahoo. It was at the former that he met fellow animator Lena Green. It wouldn’t be long before Green and Anderson realized they had more in common than they originally thought.

Doable Guys

Anderson and Green founded Doable Guys to fill a gap they saw in New York’s drawing scene. Feeling excluded from New York’s art scene, they sought to create a new, more inclusive group that celebrated the queer community as a whole. To do so, they put out a call for artists to submit artwork following a simple prompt: draw a guy who is “do-able” to you. All genders and experience levels were welcome, and the group’s first anthology was published in 2016 with 20 artists. Proceeds from the zine — and every edition since — have gone to the LGBTQ+ nonprofit GLSEN, which supports high school gay-straight alliances and fosters LGBTQ inclusion in students. “I know choosing GLSEN, an organization that works in schools, may seem like an odd choice for a zine that is adult content, but we felt their mission of creating safe and welcoming spaces aligned with our own.” The ninth anthology came out earlier this year, with plans to release a 10th edition next year, followed by a collector’s edition hardcover book combining all the work from the past 10 years.

A few months after publishing their first anthology, Kyle and Lena began hosting figure drawing sessions in various rental spaces across town, like Alchemical Studios on 14th Street and Ripley Grier Studios in Midtown. Given the erotic nature of Doable Guys’ sessions, they often had to be coy about the drawing sessions they hosted.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Doable Guys was one of the first figure-drawing groups to move their sessions online. Anderson admits his folly of thinking the pandemic would last a couple weeks at most, but figured “everyone was starting to do virtual things [like happy hours], so I figured we could do figure drawing as well.” When in-person events started picking back up, Doable Guys continued to host online sessions in addition to in-person ones to better spotlight queer artists across the country and even across the world.

In October of 2023, the group moved to the SoHo Project Space, owned by Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art founder Charles Leslie and run by Rocco Buonpane, Harvey Redding, and Rob Hugh Rosen.

“They have been so supportive,” Anderson said. “It has taken our figure drawing sessions to the next level. We’re able to pay the models more; we’re able to have bigger spaces, and do things without having to be secretive. All of those things have helped us be more successful. Taking over a drawing group that has lasted for over 25 years is really special.”

Outside of anthologies and figure drawing, Doable Guys has tabled at the Queer Zine Fair, Queer Art Fest, Eagle Leather Mart, and Folsom Street East, to name a few. In 2021, they hosted their first gallery show — “Through the Glory Hole” — in the Lower East Side featuring erotic art from around the world created during the pandemic.

Joined by the third member of Doable Guys, Court Watson, the group has expanded outside of New York City and has shown in Fire Island, Art Gaysel in Miami and Provincetown, and the Cleveland Leather Art Weekend (CLAW), the latter being co-hosted by the Tom of Finland Foundation.

“We’re trying to venture out slowly but surely, and experience new markets and meet new people. Ultimately we want to get artwork into spaces that might not be made for artwork and let people experience something unexpected.”

Throughout all this growth, Doable Guys has continued to celebrate different art styles and welcome a more diverse range of artists and models, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, or skill level. In doing so, they’ve created the community that artists like Anderson and Green were searching for 10 years ago. There is no doubt that Doable Guys is a big part of why New York has such a thriving queer art scene today.

Pleasure/Cruise

After 10 years at the helm of Doable Guys, Kyle is finally debuting his first solo show at C’mon Everybody. Curated by Ian Sterns, the show features 20 pieces of Anderson’s original charcoal work.

Anderson’s work has always explored the intersection of art, pornography, and voyeurism. With “Pleasure/Cruise,” he takes that exploration to new depths as he draws inspiration from cruising culture in back rooms and sex clubs, as well as vintage pornography like the work of adult film star Al Parker — a personal favorite of Anderson’s.

“These people put effort into this,” Anderson said. “It is their art form, and I think it should be appreciated as such.”

Pleasure/Cruise is a far cry from your traditional gallery show — trading in stark white walls for dark rooms and red lights that will literally shine a new perspective on Anderson’s work. The pieces themselves range from suggestive portraits to fleeting moments of passion to more explicit acts and their aftermath.  If looked at a certain way, the show captures the life cycle of a hookup. You could also see it as an abstract self-portrait: the artist telling you what turns him on, and in return asking you the same.

Pleasure/Cruise opens October 17 at C’mon Everybody and runs through November 14. You can see more of Kyle’s work by visiting his website (kyleandersonart.com). You can learn more about Doable Guys by visiting doableguys.com.