Collage by Karlo Martinez

"The need to express myself arises from my personal experiences as a homosexual man growing up in Mexico and studying at a Catholic school. The subject of sex and sexuality went hand in hand with guilt and remorse. When I moved to Australia to study architecture I began to experiment with my sexuality with full freedom and the need arose to liberate and express that sexual energy that I kept so repressed.

During this time, I experimented with gay porn, I filmed some scenes and I had offers to audition and film with studios in the US and Europe, but I decided that career path was not for me. I also realised there is still a lot of stigma around porn, and performing in it, especially gay porn.

My collage work is a reflection of these personal experiences and my way of glorifying, idolising, and appreciating porn and its performers as a work of art. We live in a society in which sex sells, sex (heterosexual for the most part) is everywhere in the media, and most of us consume porn. Why should we have an attitude of shame and guilt over this? Why is sex work and the porn industry still so stigmatised? In many ways, porn is a reflection of our culture."