Self Portrait Final- Vee

 

I Just Am, Vee 2024

My final project, I Just Am, is a series of three collage pieces exploring my experience with the gender spectrum. I started this project as one piece on femininity and misogyny. Although I do not identify as a woman, I am AFAB. I was raised a woman, I was socialized as a woman and all of my life experiences have been impacted by being seen as a woman. Even when you identify as trans or non-binary, you will still always be seen as a woman by the world. The article Ways of Seeing states; “To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men.” I am non-binary and my journey to discover my gender was not an easy one, they rarely are. Working on this piece helped me discover so much about my gender and how I express myself. Although I more closely identify with the androgynous piece, they are all a part of me. The article, Art That Looks at What Women See reminds me of this as it states; “A portrait does not have to be the image of an individuality, conceived as an island no one could access but the portraitist. A portrait can be the way to plunge into the sea of life”. I start each work with a pencil sketch on a bristol paper. I then pick out plain colored pages from magazines and rip them into small pieces before arranging them onto the paper to form the image. They are finally sealed with shiny Modge Podge. One work explores the feminine, one the masculine, and one the androgyny. While all the pieces share some of the same aspects, the majority are different, they represent a full spectrum with the feminine and masculine acting as opposites of one another while the androgynous one represents everything between them outside the binary. Each piece centers around the same figure whose gender appearance changes with each piece. The feminine and masculine face one another with a side profile while the androgynous one looks forward and is placed at the center of the other two. I put a lot of thought into every detail of this project. All portraits are smiling, but the feminine one’s gaze looks down while the masculine gaze looks up. This is done to express the generalized dominant and submissive natures of the masculine and feminine. The androgynous figure breaks free from these stereotypes by staring at the viewer head-on, paying no mind to the other figures. Additionally, the female portrait is wearing white, representing purity, the masculine portrait is wearing black, and the androgynous figure is wearing grey. As I was working on that piece I struggled to figure out which shade of grey to use, which led me to determine that I would use many shades to emphasize the presence of a spectrum in androgyny. These ideas continue with the backgrounds. The feminine portrait has a night sky with stars in the background, the masculine one has a day sky with clouds, and the androgynous one has a twilight sky with both. Each figure is framed by its corresponding gender symbol with its associated color, inside the circle is a halo. The material of the project attempts to have a stained glass appearance and along with the halo, my piece also discusses religion. Queer and trans people have experienced prejudice justified by religion for centuries, specifically from Abrahamic religions. Many of us have bad experiences with religion leading to religious trauma. Halos tend to be associated with saints and religious figures. My piece switches up the narrative and challenges the belief that we are seen as sinful for our existence. Interestingly enough, it is highly suspected that the bible was mistranslated leading to the justification of homophobia. One little line, one single word, and hundreds of queer people would still get to hug their grandmother, thousands would spend Christmas in their mother’s arms, and millions would have been allowed to grow old. Art can be used to express this, art is activism. The article Yoko Ono - A Groundbreaking Artist, Activist and Fighter behind the Myth of her Name states, “As she explained, art represents a way of showing people how you can think, and even though some people think of it as a beautiful wallpaper that you can sell, Yoko Ono rather perceives it as a direct connection with activism.” One artist I was inspired by was Derek Gores. I love how he creates a central image from simply colored papers. While his works tend to look more realistic while mine is more simplistic, I’d love to try and make a more detailed piece in the future.