ABSTRACT
This chapter begins a series of surveys and interviews with artists whose work could be said to involve bear art, although as the process evolved this label became increasingly problematic. A number of artists responded to a short online interview and elaborated their position through further email and social media message conversations. It emerges from a series of interviews with artists who have either identified as bear artists or who have been described as such, seeking an understanding of what bear art was and whether it constituted a form of queer fat activism. Bear culture expresses authenticity through naturalness and this idea has resonance in bear art, presenting Men's bodies as they actually are. Laura Marks concept of haptic visuality is useful in describing this play between seeing and touching and the intersubjective relationship by which bodies are produced in discourse. The fatter body presents its own challenges for artists.
