John Thomas Paradiso's SOFT PORN series present hand-stitched drawings of men taken from gay male pornography. 'Pornography has been both a sexual outlet and a place of inspiration. As a young gay man, it served as my first sex education'. John Thomas takes on embroidery as its medium, channelling what he saw his grandmothers do throughout their lives. Thus, displacing the overt sexuality of pornography into a context of romantic nostalgia. The pansy imagery refers to the historical use of the term as a slur for effeminate or gay boys or men. The irony is that pansies are a very hardy flower, reappropriating a term once meant to be hurtful, taken as resistant and pretty instead.⁣