Hands, Elbows, Pits, and Pubes, 2022
Exhibition

      My work toys with abjection and desire through a queer lens. Queer realization is a feeling of tumbling through newness, constantly discovering sources of euphoria and dysphoria. Fabric and collage visually represent this ever-changing identity. Different pieces are cut apart and stitched back together to create a bodily landscape free from expectations of binary gender. I hunt through fabric stores for colors and textures that resemble flesh, and comb lifestyle magazines for folds, muscles, and rolls. Separating the perfectly fit and toned bodies from their magazine context, I reassemble them without regard for proper anatomical positions: armpits next to knees; feet next to hands. The lines between what is body and what is not blur. Body parts bend and contort towards each other and into themselves. They struggle to find their way, yearning to be understood in all their complexity. In breaking rules of anatomy, I exert control over cisnormative bodies in ways that I cannot with my own.