Editor’s note: Seth Prestwood appears in our June 2025 exhibition, Midwest Nice. View the exhibition here or read the curator’s statement here.
“I do a lot of swimming,” says Seth Prestwood, naming Austin’s Barton Springs as his current haunt. “You can swim in it year-round.”
Sitting across from me in his “fanciest white tank top,” Seth, a mixed-media artist raised in the Deep South, speaks with an almost imperceptible drawl. Although it’s been years since he left the flat, marshy terrain of lower Alabama for art school, Seth has carried his accent through Nashville’s sticky summers, Chicago’s blistering winters, and now, Austin’s four sunbaked seasons. “I love it here,” says the self-described “Southern baby,” who relocated when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Chicago in 2020. “I realized I wanted the least amount of struggle in my life as possible. I can tolerate the cold for a while, but when it starts to bleed into May and June, I can't handle it. Everything I need in Austin is within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.”
One of those essentials is Barton Springs, one of over 30 locations around the world where Seth has stopped to collect, bottle, and label the water from his swims. “I don’t know why I do it,” he admits, eyeing his accumulation of bottles. “I think it’s because water feels so healing and refreshing.” Bodies of water—rivers, lakes, streams, even baths—crop up repeatedly throughout Seth’s work, puddling in the background of “The Diplomat Club,” lapping the sandy shores of “Gimme,” or pooling around the legs of the hooded men in “Knee Deep.” In “Ouroboros,” an unknown liquid enters the mouth of a robed man and exits through his urethra while a centaur observes from behind a telephone pole. These impish, mythological creatures—centaurs, satyrs, and the occasional wee devil—linger on the periphery of Seth’s work, serving as voyeurs of relationships or intimate acts that society deems strange, unclassifiable, and difficult.
“As someone who's not religious now, but had a Southern Baptist upbringing, I still use a lot of iconography and symbols from the Bible,” says Seth, noting that the mythological observers in his work mirror his experiences as he navigates queer spaces and communities. “I'm friends with a lot of different types of men in different types of scenes, but I never really feel totally a part of any one group,” he explains. “I was a closeted gay boy, a very stereotypical kind of experience for a gay man in the South. I didn't come out until after college, so now I’m always exploring where I belong in the queer community.”
When Seth created “The Diplomat Club,” he was exploring “bathhouses and different kinds of seedier, gay hangouts and clubs.” Here, his avatar reappears as a centaur within the steamy confines of the eponymous gay bathhouse in Grand Rapids, MI, where he observes a sexual act between two men. “Everything was bathed in red light,” Seth recalls, describing the photo he took inside as the centerpiece of his collage. “It was beautiful, very Renaissance style.” In the distance, Lake Michigan swells at the door of the bathhouse, like a cold, post-coital splash of water to the face.
In Today’s Q+Art Interview…
Seth Prestwood reflects on his Southern Baptist upbringing, discusses the role of scrolls in his work, and shares his honest opinion of life in the Midwest.
Can you tell me about some of the communities you’re exploring through your work?
Seth Prestwood: I went to New York this past weekend for a friend’s wedding, and it was a big community of Radical Faeries. There's this place called Short Mountain, and it's like this hippie queer commune for Radical Faeries. It's been around since the ’70s. People come from all over the world for gatherings and events, but many people live there year-round. And then you have the circuit gays, which is just the nonstop drugs and partying all night, going to the raves. That's not my scene, but I have friends who are into that, and I dated someone who was into that. I tried to push myself out of my comfort zone and see what that would look like—and I hated it. I'm tired. I don't like dancing for eight-plus hours all night.
It's kind of like high school—you have all these different scenes to navigate, and here I am. I'm an artsy gay, and I can get along with any of 'em, and I do for a while. But I don't really have a core group, which is fine. I can see how they're living for a moment, and then go back to my cozy little house.
You’ve lived in the South and the Midwest; what are your thoughts on the Midwest compared to the South?
SP: I had been to Chicago one or two times, but that was my first time diving deep into it. And I loved it for what it was. I want to end up in Michigan one day. It’s such a beautiful state. I love being right on the water. I'd love to be in Michigan close enough to Chicago that I could come and go. I love Saugatuck. It's a very gay boat town.
In your work, scrolls appear frequently. I'm curious about their significance—what do the scrolls symbolize for you, and how do they contribute to the mystical, intuitive, and spiritual aspects of your artistic process?
SP: The scroll has found its way into some of my work because I've always worked with paper, and I even have a little scroll tattoo on my collarbone. I'm a paper nerd. I love old paper. I used to work at the Conservation Center in Chicago, and totally nerd out on old paper, calligraphy, hieroglyphs, and all that kind of stuff. The scroll is symbolic of a story in a way.
There are many recurring symbols in your work, including ladders. What is the significance of ladders in your work?
SP: I used to do a lot of ladders. They would show up here and there. I've got a tattoo of one of those also. It's like a bridge or a way out of something, but it's still wonky and treacherous.
As a prolific visual journaler, how do your sketchbooks influence your final pieces?
SP: It's hard to say. They coincide with each other at all times. I don’t feel like I'm necessarily planning bigger projects, but they sometimes come out of that. I'm constantly working out of the books first and foremost. Some things stick, and some things don't. I love going through my books later and seeing where I sourced certain images. I always say that there's a mystical element that happens, even though it's very methodical in some ways. There’s definitely something else guiding me.
How does your Southern Baptist upbringing influence your use of religious or mythological iconography in your work?
SP: As someone who's not religious now, I still use a lot of this iconography and different symbols from the Bible. I have these figures that appear to be mythological, showing up from time to time. And I've had a little devil, which is obviously from my Southern Baptist upbringing, that has shown up a couple of times, which is always funny.
What are you working on that you’re excited about?
SP: A large coffee table style book, mixing short memoir prose with visual elements similar to my journals and paintings. I'm always working on that in the back of my mind. For the last couple of years, even while I'm working on my books, it's like I’m keeping that idea in the back of my mind for what I'm going to use in the future. I will make things that are brand new for the book, but I’ll also pull some images and drawings from my old books. That's my big goal for the next couple of years.
What are three books you would recommend to our readers?
SP: Tweaker World, Jason James; The Liars Club, Mary Karr; On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong.
Seth Prestwood: Website | Instagram
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. All images published with permission of Seth Prestwood; featured image: “Knee Deep.”