A Dreadful Beauty

I am an artist and a transgender woman. My upbringing in a conservative Mormon faith family and in the more conservative 1970s and 80s lead me to an existential crisis from as early as age four. Art was my only escape and I lived in my head. During this time, I became aware of the different “counter cultures” which took place from the Beats to the last gasp of Grunge. I was drawn to underground and lowbrow cultures because I saw them as both a safe place and communitee. I was drawn in particular to the androngeny of the Goth Rock Movement, and the darkness which mirrored both my depressions, aliennation and anxiety.

My work has been shown along side both original and traditional surrealist including Dali and Ernst Fuchs. I have also been exhibited among the more modern Lowbrow Art Movement. I have found that many among fine art have discounted my illustrative nature yet, I am profoundly not commercial for work in such fields due to the political, philosophical and extistental themes I am drawn to.

My work early was largely about my secret identity and I would not formally ‘come out’ as trans until my fourties. I never know what I will paint when I start. I tend to paint what I think about, or in many cases brood about. I have thus painted many about identity, gender and body dysphoria. I paint also about the anxiety in the world. I paint about God and Religion. In years many events have ended in my paintings from the Roddney King beating circa 89 to the Bataclan Paris Massacre in 2015. Influenced by social political artist and the activism of the counter culture, I have created many paintings as political critique. I have in recent year began painting critique on technology and its addictions and consequences.

I do not fully consider myself a surrealist. I am more similar to narrative ‘Magical Realist’. Most of my subject matter is about real things and concerns and are thus NOT fantasy. However, I tell the stories or narriation with often fantastical imagery and symbolism. One side note, is that I incorporate ‘Easter Eggs’ in my paintings. Numbers, symbols, and references to to things that may or may not be related to the subject matter. Often for instance, where I to place product like a soda can into the painting, I would choose a brand that once was made but went out of business 40 years ago. Sometimes there are eggs that only some rare viewer might understand. I usually do not want to explain my art.