The year was 1999. Back when connecting to the internet meant you had at least one AOL CD sitting around. The sound of the modem screeching to life — and then, as if by magic — ‘You’ve got mail.’”
1999 would be the year I met Collin J. Rae, on an AOL message board. He was looking either for models for a photography project and/or a writer to collaborate with on his upcoming website. While I’m not sure which ad it truly was, I ended up doing both — and somewhere between the photos, the writing, and the creative brainwaves shared between us, a friendship was formed between two artists who never played it safe.
Fast forward to 2022-2023-ish, post-pandemic. Time got away, as it does, and we’d lost touch until his name suddenly popped into my head. With some determined digital sleuthing (and way too many Collin Raes on Instagram), I finally found him. Like no time had passed at all, we picked up right where we left off — and within a month, I found myself in front of his lens again for Pandemic Portraits, Volume 2, a photography project book shot entirely through Zoom. Each image — fragmented through various glass bottles — captured the distance, distortion, and beauty of connection in a world turned upside down.
A true multidisciplinary artist, Collin’s work merges the visual and the verbal — blurring the edges of what’s beautiful, grotesque, and human. His upcoming release, NUTSUCKER, marks his first under Baroque Medusa Media and drops November 19, 2025.
Enter the disturbed, electric world of Collin J. Rae — poet, visual artist, and unapologetic provocateur. NUTSUCKER is a ferocious collection of experimental poetry and surreal art that rips through the skin of sanity to reveal something raw, chaotic, and undeniably human.
Available November 19, 2025.
Below, Collin opens up about authenticity, art, and the creative tension behind NUTSUCKER — a project that’s equal parts poetry, visual assault, and emotional exorcism.
Unfiltered Words: Collin J. Rae Talks NUTSUCKER
In his own words, Collin keeps it brutally honest — no filters, no polish, just the truth behind NUTSUCKER and what drives his art.
NUTSUCKER is raw, visceral, and visually intense. How did this project come about, and what kind of headspace were you in while creating it?
I looked at it as a fucked up grief riddled door closing and another shitty one opening. There was very little I was actually happy about or satisfied with in this period. It is what it needed to be.
Your writing feels like it blurs the line between art and chaos. When do you know a piece is done — or do you ever?
I always know when I need to stop, when a piece is done. To me it’s always very obvious.
The imagery you created for NUTSUCKER feels like an extension of the poems themselves. Which comes first for you — the words or the visuals?
The words always come first, THEN I’ll work on a body of images with a similar “feel” to them.
You’re not afraid to get weird or dark in your work. What draws you to the obscure or uncomfortable?
It just comes as an extension of how I’m feeling at any given time. The past three years have come with a ton of pain and frustration — maybe even the past ten years.
What do you want readers to feel when they finish one of your pieces — relief, confrontation, connection, or something else entirely?
I don’t want to direct how someone feels, I think that’s impossible. I just hope a few people actually read this.
How do visuals and words interact in your creative process? Does one usually ignite the other, or do they evolve together?
Above all I’m a visual human — I always have been. Those visuals can come in the form of still imagery, moving imagery, or written imagery.
What would you say to another writer or artist who’s afraid to share their “too much” ideas with the world?
FUCK IT.
NUTSUCKER by Collin J. Rae releases November 19, 2025 under Baroque Medusa Media — a ferocious debut that proves raw emotion, visual art, and poetic disruption can still collide beautifully.
where poetry, distortion, and digital decay blur into raw emotion.
Baroque Medusa 
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