Double Exposure

Artist Statement:

My work has set out to consider how the LGBTQ+ community fits in or has been removed from the world around us through reworking and reconsidering cultures, structures, objects, their purpose, and how they came to exist. I am often inspired by and pull from my cultural experiences as a transgender, Māori, and Jewish person as well as by artists who are of similar identities. Growing up seeing bits and pieces of my cultures represented through experiencing my culture through family and friends, I have grown to have a heightened sense of awareness of cultural beliefs, practices, structures, and the parallels that might exist between my own experiences and others. My work explores identity where various art, objects, materials, stories, language, and symbolism from my own cultures spark inspiration and interest, but also am drawn to mundane and everyday objects in the world. 

The artificial structure of gender binary that has been built into society has been an important focus in my work and rejecting and exposing the artificiality of the structure that has been created. Throughout history, the strict gender binary of male and female has not always existed, many cultures recognise more than 2 genders, there are more than 7 divine genders recognized in Judaism, and in Māori culture, there is another identity. As someone coming from multiple cultures with different views on gender, I look at the world through a critical lens of how gender is represented and how society expects people to perform their gender roles, and how these expectations fluctuate from culture to culture. Examining the artificial structure that confines people to ‘male’ or ‘female,’ and what it means to be ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine,’ picking apart languages that have gendered nouns, as well as metaphors or idioms, such as, the “right hand man.” 

The purpose of my art is to invite people on a visual journey that takes inspiration from my own cultures, whether it is from the purposes, textures, patterns, shapes, stories, rituals, colours, or experiences. A journey through my perspective and experiences as someone who is multicultural is important to me because of the history of my cultures being forgotten, mixed up with others, or ignored, and to highlight these things and bring up details about the cultures that are important and mean more than what meets the eye. I want my art to enable people to question the artificial structure of the binary structure, like questioning how certain elements - such as colours, shapes, and materials, can change the way we perceive and/or validate gender of people and objects according to the existing artificial structure. I want to use my work to educate people about the history of the LGBTQ+ community, the other communities that I am a part of, and the attempted erasure or hiding of each of the communities' existence in history because of those attempts that continue today in attempting to erase my cultures. 

Double Exposure features plaster hands repeated throughout the space, weavings, cutting (carving), photography, paper, textiles, metal, found objects, and natural materials in an attempt to show the visual ways that gender is more complex and fluid than the artificial social structures make it seem. I use weaving to distort and change the image of the body, while using carving to censor and create patterning across my flesh in the images which are influenced by referencing the ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ in traditional Māori arts. Fabric is important to my work through the way that it can morph, alter, or disguise one's appearance. Creating work that is not framed fully but extends out and around the frame is important to my work because of the idea that gender identity must conform to specific qualities and appearances, which is why I use images and objects in a manner where it is possible to see how multiple interpretations and interactions of objects or materials can exist within identity without much change but moves out of the frame. Using specific colours to signify the gender binary but also alludes to the transgender pride flag is important to my work to hint to the viewers that the work is related to gender. While considering how gender identity is constantly in flux throughout society and more specifically through my own personal experiences.