i made most of the images in pool paintings in late 2020/early 2021 using a combination of several 35mm point and shoot cameras. at the time, i was unemployed and spent 99% of my time at home, and that was when my gender epiphany really started to happen.
my first few rolls were really just documenting my surroundings, but a series slowly took shape with each roll after that. i started experimenting with different film stocks, found a few new favorites, and kept shooting. i stopped making images after a while because i got really depressed, but i always knew there was something to this project. when it became clear that the project had reached at least a temporary stopping point, i sent the entire series to cc camuglia of themselves press. they loved them, and now we have a zine!
press
Blue River Review featured artist
In-the-In-Between portfolio feature
Float Magazine portfolio feature
from my website
Beginning with this series in the summer of 2020, I've been using my practice to continually explore my relationship to place as it relates to and informs my experiences with loss, trauma, and gender. I found a home within my body for the first time in nearly a decade when I began to question my gender identity. I began exploring my relationship with gender and sexuality after the end of my most recent romantic relationship and began making photographs that followed me through the process of healing and rebirth. In depicting what i perceive to be a personal queer utopia, I escape from a reality in which I am largely closeted and performing a version of femininity that was engrained in me as a result of past trauma. Drawing inspiration from queer vernacular photography, I remove the notion of technical precision, shifting to hazy, dreamlike images from point-and-shoots. I examine place, time, and ritual through images made in locations including my bedroom, various family homes, and the larger landscape of the city in which i’ve lived all my life.
selected images
images from this series have also been published by Another Chicago Magazine (1 / 2 / 3), Wishbone Words, Blue River Review, and en*gendered lit.
pool paintings can be purchased from themselves press in print format.