Module 4

The final module is a self directed work which is a culmination of the techniques learned, and that is either independent of or in conjunction with my other studios. As my other studios were exploring masks, perception, voyeruism, gender performativity and queer identity, I have decided to tie my resolved work in with those studios.

Titled Gender Monster, this painting is a distorted self-portrait. It carries over the visual motif of masks from my sculpture studio, implying the artificiality of my outward presentation, and its performative nature. My entire body of work is a response to the queer anxiety experienced in the growing tide of anti LGBTQIA+ rhetoric in media and legal spaces. The underlying message hidden within this rhetoric is that a person who is queer is inherently monstrous, and as such is not entitled to dignity or safety. This messaging directs non-normative people to perform an accepted role, resulting in the anxiety that the mask may slip. So I draw the implication to the extreme, irreverently stating that “Yes, I am a monster and I am not sorry.”