Marlboro Man Shablam by Josh Howatt

Marlboro Man Shablam
Josh Howatt
Acrylic, Mixed Media
36"h x 36"w x 1.5"d
2025

The Wild West meets Rupaul's Drag Race! I enjoy examining American gender norms, teasing out the absurdities and playing with its opposite. In this piece the Marlboro Man (an icon of American masculinity) performs the most ambitious of dance moves: the Shablam! A spin, followed by a death defying backbend, ending with the performer landing on their shoulders, a single leg outstretched towards the sky. The move is aggressive, dangerous, violent. And riotously applauded within the queer ballroom scene.

Get to Know the Artist:
Originally from Orange County, CA, he made his way to Texas via New York City. Self-taught and working in mixed media, Josh's art touches on subject matter around loss, healing, and identity. His work tries to find the beauty in the mundane, the ugly, the shapeless. And his art ranges from small paper illustrations and watercolors of the everyday, to bold, aggressive acrylic artworks contending with life's most complicated themes.