About Me

Growing up in a Christian household and attending Catholic school, I always felt separated from my peers in a way that I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t until I got older and began to unravel my ingrained identity as a cisgender girl that that separation began to make sense. Now, as a non-binary adult of no faith, I realize that the environment I was raised in is the very same environment that rejects my existence. In order to resolve this internal conflict, I paint.

I explore many nontraditional concepts in my pieces, yet work in the deeply traditional and historical medium of oil painting. To emphasize this duality, I push the boundaries of what painting truly is by bringing in mixed media and sculptural elements, mirroring my desire to push the boundaries of gendered social conventions. As a queer non-binary individual, my work heavily revolves around my identity, the role identity takes in my life, and the LGBTQ+ community as whole. I explore the societal, political, personal, and religious aspects of what it means to be a gender non-conforming being in a world that so deeply values conformity. At times, subverting and emulating the religious icons of my upbringing in order to uplift a community that the Christian Church has historically oppressed.

Many of my pieces employ my own body in the nude as to highlight the intimate nature of this type of self-expression. The vulnerable feelings of exposing flesh that is typically hidden are akin to the feelings of divulging my gender identity to new audiences, especially when wider society would prefer that I keep it to myself. There is a freedom in living one’s truth to the fullest extent, but there is also pain and alienation. This is exemplified in many of my works, where acts of violence, such as the tearing of the body and decapitation, stand opposed to elements of aesthetic beauty, such as flowers and gilding. The conflict of these motifs, and the conflicts that arise from expressing my identity, are what thoroughly underline my practice.

Reconciling these tumultuous emotions is ultimately what I seek for myself when making my work. The process through which I ideate my pieces is one of self-reflection, where I isolate certain feelings I want to explore – such as fear, dysphoria, rejection – and dig deep into why those feelings exist. Often, they are a reaction to the prejudiced political and hyper-Christian climate in America, where gender non-conformity is seen by many as not only nonsensical, but also a potential threat. To announce one’s identity to the world, to stand against the mainstream and declare that you are different, brings many freedoms – but it also creates opportunity for oppression and subjection. To exist between such contentions is to face many struggles, and by way of painting I attempt to rectify those struggles while also bringing them to light for others.