Artist statement
To be a queer artist is to make queer art, and the figure, which has many roots in queer art history, is one of the most fervent expressions of queerness that I believe there is. To me, the figure as expressed by me, painted by me, drawn by me, is undoubtedly queer. To have a body in our current world is to be seen with gender and expectations of sexuality, and to paint a figure is to see and to know a body and its form, beyond societal perceptions. I paint from a nonbinary perspective, figures made of beautiful flesh and bone.
Queer people have historically not been allowed access to their own narratives, and had to hide their experiences away, only displayed in public through secret symbolism. The work I make uses this symbolism alongside figure painting to explore the ways everything is gendered socially, and offers a nonbinary perspective on nature, culture, and having a body.
These secret expressions of queerness, bodily form, and nature come together to create for me a wondrous language of queer naturality, a symphony of feelings, that I find a home and solace in. By combining the historically and culturally feminine mediums of fiber, and traditionally masculine mediums of paint, my work becomes not only queer in its creation and inception by a queer person, but also through its embodiment. I can only hope that the viewers and owners of my work are able to find the kind of home and comfort in the nonbinary worlds I create that I do, no matter if they consider themselves queer or not.
