Artist Statement:

For this eight part series, I used a variety of different materials to achieve the effect I had envisioned. The backgrounds were all done with spray paint to create a mystical look, contrasting with the 3D elements of flowers and jewelry on top of the finished portraits made with acrylic and occasional slight washes of oil.

With this series, I wanted to create a predominantly male figure but add stereo typically feminine accessories to him in order to make the audience question the gender of the model. I chose this topic because I want to use my art to start a conversation around the topic androgyny, non-binary, and gender identity, a topic some people are uneducated on as I learnt from my model.

The model I chose had never heard of the term “androgyny”, let alone anything about the LGBT+ community, until he met me only a month prior to the creation of these paintings. By bringing him on as my model for this project, I was not only educating him on the topic, but also helped him on a journey to accepting and discovering himself. The following are quotes taken from an interview with the model about his thoughts and feelings towards the series:

“I was skeptical at first because I felt it would be awkward seeing myself like that, but the more I thought about it, the more open I become to the idea of it; I enjoyed seeing myself in that way ...The finished paintings were not what I expected. I thought seeing them, seeing myself that way, would make me feel like less of a man, but I was surprisingly happy because it did the opposite. The paintings made me happy with who I am and now I can see myself embracing androgyny more in my life.”