a solo exhibition at the Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery in Frostburg, Maryland
In this utopia/under the deconstruction of Adam/under the Eve unmade from his rib/all created on our own terms/in our garden of eden where we are not banished but rejoiced/ “it is their right, it is their duty”/to continue transforming/to continue changing/we are the seasons without knowledge of the next/we are all 7 days of genesis without an end to creation/no rest/let us grow/let us thrive/take my hand/without pain/without fear/without guilt/without shame.
February 2023
Preservation Desires- “the first day”, “the second day”, “the third day”, "the fourth day", "the fifth day", "the sixth day”, “the day of rest.”
60” by 30” printed photographs of 120lbs of reclaimed clay, sculpted 7 times upon reclaimed steel, and cement.
The Deconstruction of Adam is a collection of works expressing the current political climate of being Transgender in America. These works encompass a critical dialogue around the ideals of gender in American society through revealing its rigid binaries, oppressive Christianity, and violent legislation. Clay as a material focal point expresses through its natural cyclical processes of construction, destruction and reclamation the resilience of Queer folx. The different material states of ceramics, video, photography and writing, simultaneously convey and criticize the values of preservation.
These artworks are created to resist, question, and unbind the self from the biopolitical body, analyzing the source of these limitations. Ceramics, photography, and video all consist of layers of historically complex means of preservation and knowledge. The ceramic forms resist the limitations of biological and systematic human structures, and reach towards a fragmented and amorphous existence. The amorphousness of these artworks is seen through the rejection of figurative notions of the academically rendered, colonially enforced, and socially/politically elected ideas of Body. The stillness of their ceramic permanence leaves these fragments as odd artifacts of intimacy. Photographs of the clay forms showcase a complex state of documentation and identification. Consisting of 7 iterations of 120lbs of reclaimed clay; a reflection on time, body, Genesis, identity, and transformation. They are a preservation of a moment between the clay being built up and being taken down and reclaimed. The audience is not given the full form of these clay bodies, they are only seeing one side of them through the photograph. Only through interpretation, ignorance, and assumption will they feel connection or understanding to the identities of these documented forms. “...and the pursuit of Happiness.” is a video work that confronts body dysphoria along with an audio overlay of questioning that reflects the common struggles of Transgender Folx in America. Through this looped video there is an immortal and endless quality to the trauma; a preservation of distress. Through this collection of work, there is an engagement with body and transformation that accepts intimate connections beyond common constraints.
The Deconstruction of Adam is an exhibition of the negative infliction of societies standards as well as the promise for a community that accepts and validates transformation. These works reach towards a desire to preserve life as well as relinquish stagnant traditions that necessitate oppression towards Queerness.
