Statement
Through my work, I consider the feelings of self-hatred, shame, and disgust that run through my entire life and are constantly reinforced by new experiences.
My gayness rejects my non-normative body and my non-normative body restrains my gayness. I cannot fit into this community that will relentlessly exclude me under the guise of “preference,” nor a sub-community that will welcome me only if I fully assimilate into it and allow the fetishization and objectification of parts of myself I have been conditioned to despise.
This battle has left me in a precarious relationship with my identity. Absurdity, humor, and the uncanny became the tools I used to navigate this relationship, and photography serves as a platform in which I utilize these tools. They are how I proclaimed my individuality and declared the justification of my existence. They are my flamboyancy.