Exit Strategies for Dysphoric Bodies '019

Exit Strategies for Dysphoric Bodies
30x30 Exhibition
Oil on panel, 30 paintings, each 6in x 6in, 2019.

In January 2019, over a span of 30 consecutive days, I translated moments of gender dysphoria into a series of paintings. Each artwork originates from a specific instance of experiential dissonance, where I felt transported to a liminal space, compelling me to imagine myriad ways of departing from my own body: percolating through pores, shedding skin like an outfit, oozing from a fissured skull, or intertwining my veins with roots beneath the earth, to name just a few.

Through abstraction, dismantling, and reconstruction, this series articulates the dynamic experience of gender dysphoria — encompassing its physical, mental, and social facets. It speaks to the perpetual state of becoming and the contrasts between a verb-driven experience and a noun-defined identity, like that of being queer, trans*, or gender-variant. Explicitly, this collection resists the societal compulsion to produce an easily digestible, representative trans* figure — a tokenistic portrayal often sought to validate one's existence, eschewing sensationalism and mere documentation.