Statement of Work

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Bodies are costumes, or can feel that way to someone, like myself, who has changed theirs. Our physical presentations (body, clothing, grooming etc) signal and mis-signal key biographical features about us, i.e gender, age, race, maybe country of origin, music subculture, etc. And for better or worse, those perceived identity features trigger associated projections and responses from others. For instance, I have experienced the vast difference between how men and women are treated. I am transgender and have lived as both.

How does the body function as both the site of embodiment, the tether between the psycho-emotional and material life; and as a social tool that communicates and betrays our lived experiences? It's human without being a person. Gender is an expression made physical through the use of our bodies.

I use layered transparent photographs of my non-binary transgender body to present alternative possibilities and undermine common expectations of the human shape. These photos are a way for me to take my body off, look at it, and render it a proxy performer.

Almost all of the “effects” are physical and either happen before the camera (with gels, exaggerated poses, etc) or after the images are printed (layering, lighting). I am interested in the photographs as objects in space.

I am interested in the implications of injecting the transmasculine nude into art history. With some of my work I am quoting the art historical while implicating the post-human. Just as my body was both biologically inherited and designed by me.